Carol Wolfe Konek
is honored with a Medium Bench
from Jana Konek, J. D. and Sharon Konek, and Jeff Konek.
The honor begins for us by calling her mother. As children
of Carol Wolfe Konek, we have enjoyed the gift of her remarkable being for all
of our lives. She is heroine defined, one of the most remarkable people, ever.
She is the single best example many of us will ever know of one whose beliefs
and actions are in unison. She has worked hard to arrive at those beliefs and
has been challenged with each step. She is true to her beliefs, and her actions
follow. She lives her conscience. She is tireless and believes her effort makes
a difference as it does. It amazes me to think how great her influence has been
on so many people. She definitely makes a lasting impression. The more you know,
the narrower the path becomes. You can't know all that she knows and not act.
I'm not surprised by her love of putting together 2,500 tiny pieced, beautifully
colored jigsaw puzzles. She is not daunted by its completion, but challenged by
its possibility. This is her approach to life. She teaches classes, writes
books, give lectures, stirs people to think in ways they had yet to consider.
She adores her husband, children, grandchildren, family and friends. She
orchestrates family gatherings around delicious food, beautiful table settings,
lively conversation and laughter. She gathers people together and is curious
about what they think and how they feel. She listens, asks questions and she
cares about the answers.
I admire her tenacity and her willingness to champion thoughts and actions
fueled by her intellectual curiosity and her belief in peace, equity, quality of
life and love for all people. I admire her relentless pursuit of what she truly
believes, even when it is very hard. Her compassion and love extend naturally to
all who meet her. She understands the connections of the smaller to the larger,
and the immediate to the long term.
As a child, I appreciated the way she welcomed into our home other children who
were looking for a place to belong. I didn't question the presence of different
kids, teenagers or grown ups around the dinner table, at holiday celebrations or
sleeping in the spare bedroom or on the sofa. I knew she had enough energy and
love to go around. I wanted to share her with others.
I love the spark that she sends me every time I see her, think of her or read
her written words. I see in her the spirit of my great-grandmother, Nana, my
grandmothers, Nana Fern and Nagymama, my dear great-aunts, Willa and Everta, my
sweet aunts Linda, Loretta and Ruth, my cousin Nancy and all the other amazing
women, relatives and others whose life lessons have taught her. Mom has a way of
learning what is special and making it her own. I have not once in my whole life
questioned her love for me. That is an amazing gift to give a child. She has
inspired me always and I am grateful. For her generous, unconditional, constant
love, I honor my mother as a heroine for all time.
By Jana Konek, age 39
She doesn't follow the crowd. She stands up for herself. She's free-willed and
she likes to speak her decisions and opinions. She's very confident about others
and herself. She enjoys her job and teaching the students about things they need
to learn. She's a great person who likes to listen about your ideas and opinions
and is very polite and generous. It would make Nana proud of me if I were a good
student and got into a good college and had a nice job and home in a nice area.
By Dylan Konek, age 10
She paints a lot. She takes walks a lot with Nan. She treats people nice and us
nice. She goes skinny-dipping. She drinks coffee. She takes us out to lunch a
lot. She likes to draw and write sentences. She loves me.
By Damon Konek, age 6
BACKGROUND
Carol Wolfe Konek was born in Meade, KS in 1934, the first child of Leonard
Merwin Wolfe and Fern Ford Wolfe, grandchild of Willis and Lula Norman Wolfe and
Asa and Goldie Keltner Ford, and great grandchild of Henry and Hattie Keltner
and Albert and Mattie Norman Jacob Wolfe.
Although rooted in Meade, she lived in Kansas City before she started the first
grade in Plains, Kansas. Her family moved west to Long Beach for the third
grade, and then to Seal Beach, California. She skipped the seventh grade when
her family returned to Meade for her eighth grade through high school years.
After three-and a half years at the University of Kansas, she married her
college sweetheart, John Konek, on December 22, 1954. John was a high school
All-American football player from California, Pennsylvania, playing football at
KU on a scholarship. Very handsome, tall, smart, funny, he was and remains her
one great love.
She set out to be what she designed for herself, a devoted wife and busy mother.
Carol had her first child, Julia Jill on January 30, 1956, her son John Douglas
January 31, 1958, Jana Lynn July 2, 1959, and Jeffrey Scott April 19, 1962. Of
all of Carol's accomplishments, she considers her most significant and valued
one, motherhood. Carol and John recount to their children that each night, they
tell each other how wonderful their children are.
She returned to Wichita State University to complete her Bachelor's degree
(1963), and to pursue her Master's degree (1967). She taught composition as a
teaching assistant, lecturer and instructor prior to completing her Ph.D. in
1977 by commuting to the University of Oklahoma.
She and John divorced in 1977 and reunited to live together within a year, to
remarry in 1989. Although John and Carol discovered they had strikingly
dissimilar backgrounds and interests, they shared their passion for each other.
John saw Carol as "kind of a plain Jane, but a live one, with a smile that
melted me." He recalls, "I could feel the tenderness and caring she gave me when
I looked at her." Carol saw John as "the funniest, warmest, most openhearted man
I would ever know."
She told me a secret once, that her life would not have been complete if she had
not married this one dear man. He was her mission. He is the love of her life.
John was a skilled and exuberant athlete and Carol became a teacher and writer.
He plays bridge and she writes poems. He golfs and she does yoga. He prays and
she demonstrates. He loves to stay home and she loves to travel the world. They
share their adoration of their children and their extended families and the
values they treasure most.
In the beginning of her teaching career, she developed composition courses for
students who hated or feared writing, as she was particularly "devoted to
creating access to higher education for students excluded in an earlier time."
She loved to talk to community and business groups about educational equity and
about liberatory learning.
As a returning student with a family, she was "particularly interested in the
idea of the Open University as a place for nurturing the aspirations of all."
She "sought to correct inequities of the past" by encouraging "what were at that
time called the new students, first generation college students, racial and
ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged, and people whose work or family
responsibilities had interrupted their education." As a "student with acute
performance anxiety," she "let her own terror of speaking, writing, thinking
critically and questioning conventional wisdom" guide her in her "exploration of
empowering pedagogues" for herself and her "oppressed allies."
In 1971, along with Dorothy Walters, Annette TenElshof, and Sally Kitch, she was
a co-founder of the Center for Women's Studies at Wichita State University.
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
I Hear My Sisters Saying, co-editor; The Source Book: An Inductive Approach to
Composition, co-author; Daddyboy: A Family's Struggle with Alzheimer's, author;
Women and Careers: Issues and Challenges, co-editor, co-author.
Published essays, stories, and poems in journals including:
Peace Reviews: A Transnational Journal; RE:AL: A Journal of Liberal Arts; Kansas
Quarterly; Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women's Liberation; Affilia:
A Journal of Women and Social Work; So To Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language
and Art; Changes: For People in Recovery; Heresies: A Feminist Publication on
Art and Politics; Mikrokosmos.
Submitted by John D., Jana and Jeff Konek
September 15, 1998