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Greenpeace matriarch "walked in light" (Marie Bohlen)
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/greenpeace-matriarch-walked-in-light/blog/47902/
Greenpeace matriarch "walked in light"
Blogpost by Barbara Stowe - January 16, 2014
Marie Bohlen, a consummate artist known for her nature illustrations and a founding matriarch of Greenpeace, died January 5th at age 89, passing away peacefully at her home in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Besides a distinguished career as an illustrator and her seminal role in the founding of Greenpeace, Marie will be remembered for her deeply-lived testimony as a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) to the values of pacifism, simplicity, social activism and speaking truth to power.
<snip>
Marie's dedication to social activism and pacifism resonated with Jim when the two met in 1957 at a local meeting. They married in 1965, on July 4th: Jim's birthday as well as Marie's. She convinced him to join the Sierra Club, and brought him to his first Quaker meeting. Her influence sharpened his growing commitment to peace and environmentalism and he resigned his job as an engineer for a defense contractor to seek employment that paralleled his values.
In 1967, with the Vietnam War raging, the couple left the United States for Canada to shelter Marie's 19-year-old son Paul Nonnast (from her first marriage) from the Vietnam war draft. They also brought with them two other children, Margot (14) and Lance (11), from Jim's first marriage. Arriving in Vancouver, the Bohlens went to an antiwar march, looked for the Quaker banner, and found two other former east coast Americans, Irving and Dorothy Stowe, holding it. The couples bonded, beginning a lifelong friendship rooted in activism, and in 1969 -- together with UBC law student Paul Cote and several activists including Bill Darnell -- they founded the "Don't Make a Wave Committee" to protest atomic blasts on Amchitka Island. The group soon expanded to include Bob and Zoe Hunter, journalists Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and a diverse base of other like-minded souls. The Committee changed its name to Greenpeace several years later, and an international eco-phenomenon was born.
<snip>
It was also Marie -- inspired by 1950's Quaker anti-nuclear protest voyages to Bikini Atoll -- who had the vision to propose that the Don't Make a Wave Committee sail a boat to "confront the bomb." This bold strategy of seagoing "bearing witness" voyages remains a vital part of Greenpeace International campaigns today, as per the 2013 voyage of the Arctic 30 to expose Russian preparations to drill in the Arctic. Marie was also slated to sail on the voyage to Amchitka, along with Lou Hogan, but in the final cull women were disallowed. Captain Cormack held the traditional view that women were bad luck.
<snip>
Greenpeace matriarch "walked in light"
Blogpost by Barbara Stowe - January 16, 2014
Marie Bohlen, a consummate artist known for her nature illustrations and a founding matriarch of Greenpeace, died January 5th at age 89, passing away peacefully at her home in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Besides a distinguished career as an illustrator and her seminal role in the founding of Greenpeace, Marie will be remembered for her deeply-lived testimony as a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) to the values of pacifism, simplicity, social activism and speaking truth to power.
<snip>
Marie's dedication to social activism and pacifism resonated with Jim when the two met in 1957 at a local meeting. They married in 1965, on July 4th: Jim's birthday as well as Marie's. She convinced him to join the Sierra Club, and brought him to his first Quaker meeting. Her influence sharpened his growing commitment to peace and environmentalism and he resigned his job as an engineer for a defense contractor to seek employment that paralleled his values.
In 1967, with the Vietnam War raging, the couple left the United States for Canada to shelter Marie's 19-year-old son Paul Nonnast (from her first marriage) from the Vietnam war draft. They also brought with them two other children, Margot (14) and Lance (11), from Jim's first marriage. Arriving in Vancouver, the Bohlens went to an antiwar march, looked for the Quaker banner, and found two other former east coast Americans, Irving and Dorothy Stowe, holding it. The couples bonded, beginning a lifelong friendship rooted in activism, and in 1969 -- together with UBC law student Paul Cote and several activists including Bill Darnell -- they founded the "Don't Make a Wave Committee" to protest atomic blasts on Amchitka Island. The group soon expanded to include Bob and Zoe Hunter, journalists Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and a diverse base of other like-minded souls. The Committee changed its name to Greenpeace several years later, and an international eco-phenomenon was born.
<snip>
It was also Marie -- inspired by 1950's Quaker anti-nuclear protest voyages to Bikini Atoll -- who had the vision to propose that the Don't Make a Wave Committee sail a boat to "confront the bomb." This bold strategy of seagoing "bearing witness" voyages remains a vital part of Greenpeace International campaigns today, as per the 2013 voyage of the Arctic 30 to expose Russian preparations to drill in the Arctic. Marie was also slated to sail on the voyage to Amchitka, along with Lou Hogan, but in the final cull women were disallowed. Captain Cormack held the traditional view that women were bad luck.
<snip>
