Roll Call Tribute

(Published in) The (Macomb IL) McDonough County Voice (on) June 20, 2014

[Photo provided by daughter.]

Beatrice L. 'Bea' Wehrly

88, of Macomb

Beatrice L. "Bea" Wehrly, 88, of Macomb passed away in her sleep at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 15, 2014, at Wesley Village Healthcare Center in Macomb. She was a woman of humble beginnings who went on to raise a family, earn her Ph.D., become a distinguished professor emeritus at Western Illinois University and was recognized as a pioneer in her field of counselor education.

She was born on Jan. 30, 1926, in Brooklyn, Wis., to Bert Hayman and Nettie Dorothea Peterson Richards. They along with her older sister Emily, worked and lived on farms in the Brooklyn and Evansville, Wis., area during the depression years.

Bea proudly recalled that at a young age she often drove a team of horses pulling the hay wagon. She was a 4-H member and one of her favorite projects involved raising "Bessie," a sheep. She also participated in 4-H cooking and sewing classes, including learning how to cut down larger sized donated clothing to make her own dresses.

She married James Wehrly on Aug. 25, 1948 in Urbana; he survives.

Also surviving are her children Dave (Cindi) of San Antonio, Texas, Don of Marysville, Calif., and Dot of Fort Collins, Colo.; grandchildren Sam and Anna of Marysville, Calif., Haywood of Nyack, N.Y., Leah of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Andrew of Cookeville, Tenn.; and nephew John Schubert of Racine, Wis.

She was preceded in death by her parents, sister Emily (Richards) Schubert and nephew Stephen Schubert.

Bea earned her B.S. Ed. from the then State Teachers College of Whitewater, Wis., in 1945 and her M.S. Ed. from the University of Illinois. She was one of the few women in the 1950s who worked outside the home. Bea commented, "We were a dual-career family before dual-career families were common."

Educational and career needs had the family moving every three to four years from Illinois to Indiana to Texas and eventually back to Illinois. Her early career included teaching high school business classes followed by teaching several different grades of elementary school. In Amarillo, Texas she became a visiting school counselor with responsibility split between eight schools.

In 1969, at Texas A&M University, Bea became the first woman there to earn a Ph.D. in the Department of Education. After that, she and Jim were hired by Western Illinois University in Macomb. Bea was appointed to the College of Education, and initially split her time between teaching and implementing an elementary school counseling program at the WIU Laboratory School.

After the lab school closed, she taught at WIU full-time, concentrating in three specialties: Multicultural/Interracial Counseling, Counseling Children, and Lifestyle and Career Development. She developed new courses in each of these disciplines and was promoted to full professor in 1976.

Bea maintained professional currency through post-doctoral studies, which included her 1982-83 sabbatical at Harvard University in cross-cultural counseling and her attendance at twenty professional development institutes from 1982-1995.

Dr. Wehrly took her love of learning all around the world. She was program director, organizer and leader for six WIU international summer study programs between 1977 and 1987 in topics such as Career Development, Career Guidance, and Education, Culture and Society. These tours took her and her students, many of whom became life-long friends, to numerous countries including England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

In 1991, she represented WIU on a recruitment trip to the Far East and in 1996 travelled to the Philippines to give presentations at two workshops. She made fifty presentations at professional meetings at national and international locales between 1971 and 1990.

Although she retired from the Department of Counselor Education and College Student Personnel at WIU in 1994, Bea actively continued her quest for professional development as a consultant, adjunct teacher and researcher. She maintained professional affiliations too numerous to mention and continued to make presentations to international professional societies on topics including multicultural and interracial counseling. Over her career she authored over thirty-five professional publications. After retirement she authored three books: Pathways to multicultural counseling competence-a developmental journey (1995), Counseling Interracial Individuals and Families (1996) and Counseling Multiracial Families (1999, co-authored with K & M Kenny).

Over her career, Dr. Wehrly was the recipient of numerous awards and honors. These include being a seven-time recipient of the WIU Faculty Excellence Award between 1979-1991, the WIU Faculty Lecturer in 1988 ("Toward a Multicultural partnership"), the 1998 WIU Inaugural Affirmative Action Director’s Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award-University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1982, and the prestigious American Counseling Association Professional Development Award in 1999, in which she was cited for her pioneering work for women in the counseling profession.

Dr. Bea Wehrly’s scholarly work in the area of cross-cultural counseling and contributions in the areas of multicultural understanding and career development have significantly influenced what is known today as multicultural counseling. She was an incredible woman who certainly blazed a path at WIU and beyond.

Bea and Jim Wehrly instituted several scholarship programs at WIU, indicative of their tremendous generosity. They started saving $25 a month for scholarships when that was all they could afford while raising their family. Eventually this evolved into donations of over $300,000 to WIU, which will maintain these scholarships into perpetuity to help ease the financial burden of deserving students. These include the "Bea Wehrly Study Abroad Scholarship," which subsidizes the expenses of international study. Her desire was for the recipients "to be fully aware of their own cultural values before they travel and realize how these values impact their perspectives on the differing cultural values of other people." She and her husband also created two general "Bea and Jim Wehrly Scholarships" plus a book scholarship which helps students with the rising costs of school supplies.

Bea and Jim loved to travel outside of their professional work. This started with numerous trips to many areas of the United States (often camping) while raising their three children, and in their later years several marvelous international adventures, including an around the world trip in 1983, to Africa in 1997, and to New Zealand.

A memorial service to celebrate Bea’s life will occur at 11 a.m. on Monday, June 23, in the lounge at Wesley Village, 1200 E. Grant St., in Macomb. A reception will be held following the services at Wesley United Methodist Church. He body was donated to science.

Bea requests that in lieu of flowers any donations be made to their scholarship funds at WIU. Donations noted for the "Bea Wehrly memorial" can be mailed to: WIU Foundation, 1 Circle Drive, Macomb, Illinois 61455 or sent online at www.wiu.com/giving/purchasse.asp.

Clugston-Tibbitts Funeral Home in Macomb is in charge of arrangements. You may leave condolences and sign the guest book online at clugston-tibbittsfh.com.