QUECHEE — An artist’s discerning eye can often capture the beauty in the world around them in ways that most overlook or cannot see.
Jeanette Veverka had the eye and talent of an artist and shared it in many different ways throughout her life.
“Jeanette was truly a gifted artist,” said Marion Geraidi, her friend and one of Veverka’s many “garden buddies.”
Geraidi met Veverka through the Quechee Garden Club, which Veverka led for about 25 years. The club cleared the beds, planted and cared for the perennial flower garden in front of the Quechee Library, meeting every Tuesday morning for several hours. Geraidi recalled one morning that revealed Veverka’s ability to see something beautiful or useful where others might not.
“We would be busy trimming flowers and dropping branches on the ground,” Geraidi said in a phone interview. “Jeannette would come around and quietly pick them all up and before you knew it, she had made a beautiful arrangement.”
Veverka would then place it in the back of her car and bring it to someone who could use some cheer.
“She might say, ‘well, she is having a hard time’ or ‘this person can’t get out much.’ She was so connected to the whole community.”
Veverka died on Jan. 5, about a month after being diagnosed with bile duct cancer. She was 85.
Teaching art classes in her home, making centerpieces for the annual ChaD dinner and Quechee Club events, drawing and painting her own greeting cards and painstakingly restoring the Stations of the Cross for Our Lady of the Snows Catholic church in Woodstock with her husband were just a few of the ways Veverka used her talents and volunteer spirit for the community around her.
Born in Queens, New York in 1941, Veverka’s father was a farm boy from Missouri who came to the city and delivered milk for Sealtest for 50 years, said Donna Veverka, the youngest of three children of Jeanette and Arthur, who died in 2002. Her mother emigrated from Germany after World War I.
Veverka earned a liberal arts degree from Queens College and worked as a secretary where she met her husband, who was a chemical engineer working in the paper industry.
The couple married in 1965 and lived for a brief time in New Jersey before moving to Suffern, N.Y. until 1995 when they came to Quechee. Donna said the family had owned a condo at Killington and skied frequently at White Mountain resorts. Her father was nearing retirement and he loved to ski and golf so Quechee was an obvious choice.
Like she did in Suffern, where Veverka volunteered in numerous ways including the YMCA, she dove right into that same role in Quechee and the surrounding area.
She contributed time and talent to Habitat For Humanity, David’s House, which provides lodging and support for families with children in the hospital, and CHaD, the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth and was a youth mentor.
“She worked tirelessly for ChaD,” said Mike Brown, who with his wife, Sue, were longtime friends of the Veverkas.
The Browns live in Massachusetts and have a home in Woodstock. They became close friends of the Veverkas 40 years ago when both families owned condos at the Killington ski area. Mike Brown said Veverka helped so many people throughout her life, often in a quiet, unnoticed way.
“Wherever we go in the greater Woodstock, Quechee and Hanover circle, Jeanette Veverka’s hand has touched someone,” Brown said from his home in Massachusetts. “They say the best way to give is anonymously and that was Jeanette. She gave care to so many. If someone was in need, Jeanette Veverka was somewhere in the background helping.”
Veverka’s daughter, Tara Kern of Monroe, N.Y., said her mother taught her children, which included son Peter, the importance of giving back when you were able.
“Growing up, she instilled in us the whole idea of giving back to the community that you are a part of and volunteering was something that encompassed who she was as a person,” Kern said. “That is what I consider, in addition to her many talents, her greatest legacy.”
Veverka’s artistic talent was in evidence early on in her life, say her daughters
“My mother had been an artistic person her whole life but she was never formally trained,” Donna said.
Veverka learned to sew and often made her children’s clothes or would reupholster sofas. She also took ceramics and porcelain classes in her teens and was equally adept in sculpture, jewelry and paper art.
“She would turn our kitchen table into an art studio, painting for her own enjoyment,” Donna said. “She was a great lover of flowers and might do a watercolor of crocuses peeking through the snow.”
Veverka also did portraits of people’s homes and pets and would offer her paintings for fundraisers.
“She had so many different talents with art,” said Joanne Regli, who became friends with Veverka soon after moving to Quechee in the late 1990s and traveled with her to distant places for about 20 years.
“Jeanette never sent a store bought card,” Regli said, whether it was a birthday or holiday. “Every one was handmade. I have a few that I have framed.”
Geraidi splits her time between Quechee and Florida and remembers the beautifully handmade cards she received from Veverka.
“She would draw something beautiful in pencil, like a bloom, a tree or a nature scene and then paint it in watercolor and write a little note inside,” Geraidi said.
After the gardening season ended, Veverka had the club over for luncheon in her home.
“Her home was full of handmade creations and they were stunning,” Geraidi said. “Seems like everything she touched was creative and artistic. She was just a naturally gifted artist and a very loving and giving person.”
When her husband was undergoing treatment for leukemia, Jeanette, with Arthur’s help, restored the 14 Stations of the Cross at Our Lady of Snows in Woodstock. The stations depict the final hours of Christ’s life.
Donna Veverka said they had sections of chipped plaster and were faded. Her parents would bring one station home at a time to do the restoration.
“They cleaned, sanded, patched and repainted them white with gold trim,” said Donna, who lives in Boston.
The Veverkas were Eucharistic ministers at church and Jeanette frequently gave rides to anyone who was unable to drive themselves to Mass and also drove those in need of a ride to medical appointments.
“It was part of her faith, always giving back,” Donna said. “And she did it to be part of the community and be involved.”
Athletics were another big part of her life. She was often on the golf course or tennis courts and enjoyed skiing, bicycling, into her 80s, and pickleball
“Anything with a racket, she was deadly,” Donna said. “She was an early adopter of pickleball. Played it for 15 years.”
Veverka was on the winning team of the first Quechee Lakes Landowners Association Pentathlon 31 years ago and as a member with her husband of Art’s Squirrel Squadron.
Jackie Coyne, another garden club member, also worked with Veverka raising money for ChaD (Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth) and saw her create beautiful centerpieces for the annual ChaD dinner in addition to asking businesses to donate gifts for the raffle.
“For Jeanette it was always about the children. She would think of a theme like Hats off for the Kids and we would work around her ideas,” Coyne said. “And it was always spectacular. She taught me so much about art. There was nobody like her, the energy and the drive to create.”
Veverka lent her artistic talent to making the red bows decorating the village around Christmas time, including one big on the covered bridge. Coyne said they traveled to Boston to buy the velvet because they could get a good buy and Veverka was “thrifty.”
Geraidi said Veverka took new gardeners “under her wing” and introduced them to the club.
“She did that for me and she inspired me to become a gardener,” she said, adding that no matter how early she showed up to work on the library garden, Veverka was always there first.
“She was tireless with her energy and seemed to never stop moving,” Geraidi said. “Her nickname in the club was the Energizer Bunny. After gardening she would go play pickleball or tennis.”
Regli traveled to several destinations with Veverka and said her friend’s eye for art was educational.
“She looked at art in the world around her and she was able to describe things in so many different and colorful ways that I would never see,” Geraidi said.
On one trip to France along the Mediterranean coast, Regli said she saw a beautiful painting of a sailboat on the water and was about to buy it but Veverka would not allow it.
“When we came back, I found out she took a picture of it and she painted it for me,” Regli said. “I have it hanging in my bedroom.”
Longtime friends Mike and Sue Brown said Veverka’s death will certainly leave a void in the area.
“Overall Jeanette was a loving, giving, selfless woman who touched so many in a beautiful way,” Mike Brown said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.