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It’s late spring and students are sharing their poems, essays and fiction pieces in professors of English Vic Bobb and Laurie Lamon’s Advanced Writing Workshop.
Sitting in her wheelchair just inside the door of the classroom is Nadine Chapman – hiding her oxygen tube to not draw attention to herself. It would be the last time she would ever sit in her colleagues’ class.
Former associate professor of English Nadine Chapman died July 27, after a four-year struggle with ovarian cancer.
For 12 years, Chapman was part of Whitworth – whether seen wearing her crisp linen dresses in the summer, or walking down the Hello Walk in her down coat with the fur-trimmed hood during winter.
“I loved to see her in her big heavy winter coat – I called her ‘Nanook of the North,’” said Lisa Sem-Rodrigues, program assistant for the English department.
Sem-Rodrigues was a close colleague of Chapman’s.
Chapman had a good sense of humor, loved to laugh, and had an infectious and magical smile, Sem-Rodrigues said.
During her time at Whitworth, Chapman taught various classes in composition, creative writing and creative nonfiction.
Before becoming a professor and published writer, Chapman worked as a psychiatric nurse at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage, Alaska, where she grew up.
Despite being a former nurse, writer, professor and scholar, friends of Chapman said some of the simplest things eluded her.
“She was a psychiatric nurse and she has all this great knowledge and ability, but she couldn’t make the copy machine to work or she’d get lost driving,” Sem-Rodrigues said with a laugh.
Lamon, who knew Chapman since her first day at Whitworth said, “Nadine, in many respects, is the most impractical person I’ve met; she lived in the world of ideas.”
Chapman was the kind of person who was right behind her students and colleagues – ready to catch them if they fell – and in such a loving and graceful way, Sem-Rodrigues said.
“She really saw the best in people and could see the possibility of who they could become – even if they couldn’t,” she said.
Bobb said he learned from Chapman as a writer. Her scope of writing was most impressive, he said.
In the spring semester of 2008, Chapman was unable to teach Advanced Writing Workshop due to her health. Bobb and Lamon taught the course in her place.
Though Chapman’s students and faculty could visibly tell she was ill, Lamon and Sem-Rodrigues said nobody knew exactly the gravity of her situation.
“Here she comes to school with an intravenous apparatus with her, and still doesn’t let anybody know what’s going on,” Sem-Rodrigues said. “I mean, we knew she had ovarian cancer, we knew she had gotten better, and then she got sick with complications, but that was all we knew.”
But many of Chapman’s friends and colleagues said Chapman’s private nature was more of a humble nature, never bragging about her achievements.
Chapman completed her Ph.D. in 2007 while on chemotherapy and visited colleagues’ classes during the spring semester.
After earning her doctorate’s degree, the English department wanted to celebrate, but Chapman didn’t want any noise to be made about it, Bobb said.
“She was extremely humble,” he said.
Beth Cooley, associate professor of English at Gonzaga University, knew Chapman for 10 years.
Cooley first met Chapman in a poetry-writing group, and both volunteered at their children’s elementary school as reading tutors.
“Nadine had a quiet grace about her,” Cooley said in an e-mail. “She was so many things – mother, grandmother, wife, teacher, poet, scholar, cantor at St. Augustine’s, part-time farmer, former nurse – and yet she never put her life, her experiences, on display.”
Chapman also had several published works including poetry, short stories and nonfiction.
“Nadine’s chapbook [‘On Solitude’] is a fine collection of poems that reflect her multi-faceted life,” Cooley said in an e-mail. “Some are about being a parent, some about being a daughter and her strong faith is clear in a number of her poems.”
It’s hard and competitive to publish a poem or story, Lamon said. Nadine’s published works speak for how she was regarded highly among writers and editors.
Since Chapman’s death, many positive things had been said about her from colleagues and students, but the things said about Chapman are nothing new for Bobb.
People have heard a lot of nice things since she has passed away, but you would have heard the exact same thing years ago, he said.
The absence of Chapman has been deeply felt on Whitworth campus and by the English department, Lamon said.
“I can still see her walking in here with her stacks of papers, her beautiful colors, and her beautiful smile,” Lamon said.
Contact Yong Kim at yong.kim@whitworthian.com.
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