Geets Vincent

Everybody’s got a story inside them and Geets Vincent - newspaperwoman, traveler, editor, teacher, connoisseur of words - was a master at coaxing them out.

Through most of the past 30 years, Vincent assured the adults in her weekly writing class that within the archives of their memory were tales worth writing, and that they absolutely were up to the task.

The Canada-born resident of Santa Rosa suffered a debilitating stroke four years ago, but it didn’t stop her from coming to the Thursday morning classes in her wheelchair, helped by friend and caregiver Eva Walpole.

Vincent died Sunday in her room at the Five Palms Care Home. She was 89.

She had taught English, journalism and other classes at Santa Rosa Junior College for nearly two decades when she created the autobiography class in 1985. When it became one of many classes discontinued by the school, Vincent and her students simply went independent and moved to a meeting room at the Friends House retirement community in Rincon Valley.

It continues today as the Seniors Authors and is taught by former student Sheri Graves, a retired Press Democrat reporter. Many of the adults and seniors in the class have participated for years, even decades.

Bev Wallstrum was at Vincent’s first class 29 years ago, and she still goes every Thursday.

“You just don’t want to miss it,” said Wallstrum, 94. She said that long ago, the people who share their stories in Vincent’s class ceased to be fellow students and became family.

“You hear about other people’s lives. You know so much about them from what they wrote,” Wallstrum said. “You feel a bond that you can’t describe.”

Tom Farrell of Santa Rosa participated in the writing class for years, until vision loss halted his writing. He said the course, which has produced a number of anthologies of students’ work, changed his life.

Though he is a successful man and a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities, Farrell, 88, said that as someone without a college degree it initially was intimidating to find himself in a personal writing class with some highly educated, professional people.

“Geets really gave me a tremendous gift,” he said. With her encouragement, he said, “I realized I could write as well as some of the doctors and lawyers and so forth.”

Old friend Marty McReynolds shared many stories and laughs with Vincent at social meetings of the former Sonoma County Press Club. He said she was a great teacher, but it took more than that to keep people coming to her class every week for 25 years.

“She was interested in people,” McReynolds said. “She had a lively mind. She had a good sense of humor. People just seemed drawn to her.”

Among those strongly drawn were author Monte Schulz, who met Geets as a student in her journalism class at the JC. She became a mentor to Schulz, a son of late “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, and edited all of his novels.

Jean Schulz, the cartoonist’s widow, years ago became a close friend of Vincent, long a loyal volunteer at the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

“I was amazed by Geets’ engagement with her students and their memoir writing,” she said. “It seems that Geets felt everyone had a wonderful story to tell, and she was there to encourage each one of them.”

Vincent was born Gertrude Chertkow in Calgary, Alberta, in 1925. “At 5,” she wrote in 1989, “I first decided I wanted to be a newspaper reporter.”

She never much cared for her given first name, and in time she came to suspect that an obviously female name would not serve her as she sought to join the traditional men’s club of the newsroom. She adopted Geets as her legal name.

“She lived for her byline,” said her daughter, Laurie Page Aldrich of Wisconsin.

Aldrich’s mother met her late father, teacher Hector Buroker, in Vancouver during World War II. They married in 1948 and came to California in search of opportunity four years later.

The former Geets Buroker worked as a newspaper reporter and studied English and library science, earning degrees at UC Berkeley and Sonoma State University. She and her first husband moved to Sonoma County in 1961.

Geets Buroker wrote for the former Santa Rosa News Herald and other local weeklies and for a time collaborated with Polly Huntsinger on a children’s crafts column in The Press Democrat. She divorced in 1969, a year after she began teaching at SRJC.

In 1980, she married Stuart Vincent, a widowed World War II veteran and American Cancer Society volunteer. They lived happily until his death in 2004.

In addition to teaching the family-like writing class for adults, Geets Vincent wrote freelance pieces for a variety of newspapers and publications such as travel and antiques magazines. Right up until her stroke in 2010, she savored putting stories to paper and seeing her byline in print.

She also worked at learning to play the piano, and she savored a trip to the casino. Recalled friend Tom Graves, a San Francisco photographer, “She taught me her system, which wasn’t much of a system, at the slot machines.”

Graves said Vincent’s editing help was essential to his newly released book on second-generation Japanese-American veterans of WWII, “Twice Heroes”.

“She took every story seriously,” he said.

Vincent’s heartbroken friend and caregiver, Walpole, said, “From my husband to my grand nieces, we all thought of her as the wise elder of the family.

“I’m gonna miss my Mama Geets.”

There currently are no plans for a public service. Memorial donations may be made to the Senior Authors of Santa Rosa, c/o Betty Simon, 2921 Bay Village Circle, No. 1023, Santa Rosa 95403.