Janice “Teko” Wiseman died at home on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011, after a full and joyous holiday weekend with all of her extended family. Teko was 83 years old, a native of Mobile, who spent her life in activism and service to her community and her family.
She was with her beloved husband, Hollis Jay Wiseman MD, her sweetheart since they met at age 14. She suffered not at all. After a lifetime of love and work, her heart simply stopped beating.
She is survived by Hollis; her sister, Merrellyn Miller; her six children, Holly Wiseman, Merrell Wiseman, Valery De Laney, Carole Norden, Jay Wiseman and David Wiseman; her six grandchildren; and a close and far flung circle of friends and admirers who loved and honored her for herself and her many achievements.
In the 1960s, she and Hollis set an example of courage and commitment to justice and the city they loved by founding ABLE (Alabamians Behind Local Education), an organization to help peacefully integrate the Mobile County schools. Although their work was not appreciated by all, their efforts did not flag, demonstrating that people of good will and good sense in the South could contribute to positive change. This example profoundly shaped the values of their children, all of whom remain grateful to this day.
In 1983, Teko helped found Keep Mobile Beautiful and worked as its coordinator for 10 years. Her energy, creativity and verve resulted in a beautification competition called No More Eyesore, which engaged residents, from schoolchildren to bank presidents, to clean up and beautify the ugliest eyesores around town. Other projects included planting the intersection of I-65 and I-10 and landscaping the entrance to Bankhead Tunnel. Her impact on the city is visible to this day.
When they retired 20 years ago, Teko and Hollis moved to Fairhope, and built their dream home overlooking Mobile Bay. There Hollis, who had built the University of South Alabama Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which is named after him, became president of the Fairhope Library Board and spearheaded the drive to raise approximately $7 million to build the current state-of-the-art library.
Teko turned her attention to the lack of sidewalks along Mobile Bay, and conceived the project of building a hike/bike trail beginning at the battleship on the Causeway and extending along the Eastern Shore to Weeks Bay. The organization she founded in 1995 to realize this dream, the Eastern Shore Trailblazers, has raised more than $6.5 million through private donations and grants. The 32-mile trail is only two miles short of completion.
As passionate an activist as Teko was, her abiding love and tenderness for her family took precedence over all. Down to the last afternoon of her life, when she picked satsumas from the trees in her backyard and washed them to send home with her departing children, she was first and foremost a devoted mother and a wife, intimately engaged in her family’s trials and triumphs, a source of strength, wisdom and love. Words cannot express how she will be missed.
A memorial service will be held at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, at Dauphin Way United Methodist Church. The family will receive friends from 10:30 a.m. until noon at the church.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The Baldwin County Trailblazers, P.O. Box 701, Daphne, Alabama 36526.
There will be no interment. According to her longstanding wish, Teko will be cremated and her ashes scattered over her beloved Bay.
Arrangements by Radney Funeral Home, Mobile.
