In Memoriam 1929 – 2022

Looking towards Canada in the Bay of Fundy from her home in Maine

Obituary published in Quoddy Tides

LaVerne Mae Lum died at home, in relative peace, on the evening of December 19, 2022.

She was a free spirit, creative soul and true pioneer. Born in the fall of 1929, she was one of many children given up to relatives during the depression, but returned to her loving parents, who raised her in a working class neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. She yearned for a life outside the ordinary, to be part of the avant garde, the big adventure.

LaVerne was many things: an unknown artist, mother, wife, world traveler, woman in the trades, lifelong learner, teacher, animal lover, grandmother, seamstress, gardener, thrift shopper, jewelry maker, book addict, fashionista, composter, and natural healer. She was a pilgrim, a woman ahead of her time.

She was a force to be reckoned with: demanding her parents help her rescue a wild squirrel as a child; moving out on her own to work in Texas during her high school summers; hitchhiking to the Grand Canyon at age 22, with her beloved younger brother, Larry; taking advantage of her exceptional bone structure, beauty and height, she took up fashion modeling to pay for college, then dropped out of school to hitchhike across the country in search of the author Henry Miller.

It was on one of her travels she met her husband in an artists’ enclave in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She studied sculpture and printmaking at Tulane and with master printmakers in Mexico. Her husband, a filmmaker, may have eclipsed her in the art world, since as the artist’s wife, she sublimated her own work, not only to take care of home and children, but to support his goals and aspirations.  After retiring, she returned to her own work with clay slip masks and geometric assemblage, inspired by her travels in Haiti, and her mentor and friend, Agnes Martin, the celebrated painter who said, “Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.”

LaVerne commented with a laugh that she had mixed race children “before Angelina Jolie”. She and her husband brought them up in New York City, first in an apartment, 7 floors up, in Greenwich Village and later in a storefront with a garden on the Lower East Side. She always considered herself a midwesterner, but lived most of her life on the East coast. Rather than rely solely on Western medicine, she also took them to homeopaths, acupuncturists and chiropractors in addition to Park Avenue pediatricians and dentists. There was no sugar, red dye number 2, aerosol spray or TV in her family’s home. She loved her children ferociously, insisting they have private progressive schools, all the while sewing the thread of free thinking and natural healing into their upbringing.

She had an amazing work ethic and broke both paper and glass ceilings, rising to the top of her professions, including a corner office with a most excellent view. Socially conscious, she taught women in non traditional trades, also was the director of a program to help homebound senior citizens. Later, she taught tenants the nuts and bolts of renovating and managing the buildings landlords had neglected or abandoned to facilitate them taking legal ownership — no small thing with New York City real estate! After retiring, she spent her time between Maine, Ohio and New York. She saw the first light of the new millenium in the easternmost town of the United States, and experienced 9/11 first hand. 

Like many artists, LaVerne thought outside the box, synthesizing the myriad information streams, and coming up with wholly new, often refreshing, insights. She was curious about the news of the world until the end of her life. When bedbound in the last months, she insisted on having the New York Times delivered daily and would discuss current events with her family and friends.She loved coffee and ice cream, the more the better; flowers of all kinds, but especially irises; the TV series, Law and Order and NYPD; French and Soul food; the writers Anais Nin and William Carlos Williams; the films Children of Paradise and Black Orpheus; the books The Prophet and As A Man Thinketh; tailor made clothing, and lots of shoes!

LaVerne and her husband owned a home on the coast of Maine for over 50 years, where she spent many summers and towards the end of her life, even a winter! She loved the wildflowers there — especially the lupines and irises — eating fresh scallops, berries and lobster rolls. She collected rainwater for bathing and would delight in hanging laundry on the windy front lawn, literally a stone’s throw away from the ocean.

She lived a life against the grain, and wouldn’t have had it any other way. She was a good friend, generous to a fault, who helped and taught many people throughout her life. She will be deeply missed.

LaVerne is survived by her children, Ava, Isis and Tien; her grandchildren, Leda, John, Asa and Aurom, and her beloved animal companions.