Memories of Jule Koch-Brison

Multiple Authors | Dec 21, 2016

Sarah Hale
One of my best memories of Jule is at the February Blues Craft Show in Elphin -- hours of listening to blues music and talking about God.  I will miss her honesty and compassion -- her willingness to tackle the hard questions -- her friendship over the years.

Ankaret Dean
When Jeff asked me to write a line about my dear friend Jule and her love for basketry, I realized it was like sadly losing a member of my family.
I think I met Jule back in the 1980s, I had become interested in finding basket makers in Canada who could show me how to make baskets. It was a dying art and I could only find a very few older men from Europe.
Somehow, through the grapevine, I heard there was a young woman who sold willow baskets in the Kingston market. I wish I could remember when we first met, we shared a passion for willow and natural materials.
At that time I was living in Oakville, and we invited Jule to come to Toronto to be part of a basket show at the Museum for Textiles and also to come to our basketry conferences at Harbourfront.
In the early 90s I moved up to McDonald's Corners, we were almost neighbours!
While demonstrating basketry at a fair, an elderly man had stopped and watched her for quite a while. Finally he struck up a conversation and said he had been a basketmaker in England for years and was visiting his daughter in Canada. During his annual visits, Eric Thornton and Jule became great friends and he would teach classes at Jule's house and he would sing and tell stories while everybody was weaving.
Jule grew her own willow, as well as collecting from the roadsides. She made a great variety of baskets, all of them useful for shopping or gathering. She also made very attractive tabletops and furniture using the little pieces of willow like a mosaic.
She wrote several articles for the magazine 'The Basketry Express' which I published until the year 2000, when she took it over for a few years with the help of another basket maker.
One of my wonderful memories of working with Jule was making willow coracles and then sailing them in a regatta on Dalhousie Lake.
It was wonderful to have a friend with similar interests. She was very enthusiastic about my starting a basketry museum and gave me great encouragement. I will miss her gentle smile and passion for willow.

Debbie Lingen
Jule, it is hard to believe that you will no longer be at the other end of my e-mails. Every week we shared messages when I e-mailed my weekly columns to you. You were always there with encouragement and advice for the column. Then we would rant together about the weather and share in the joys and antics of our communities. Your messages portrayed your humour, warmth and concern for everyone your life touched. Your loving touch and expertise were in every detail in the Frontenac News. We would meet in person when you devoted your time and energy at the Verona Cattail Festival to show the children how to make cattail boats and crafts. Verona is a stronger community because you cared. I feel a great loss in losing you as a friend. I will miss you terribly.

Jean Brown
How I enjoyed writing with and for Jule Koch at “the News”. She would take the time to call on the phone for clarification, or send an e-mail of gentle corrections, and of course expressed her interest in all the reporters by hosting a pot-luck luncheon from time to time. Jule safely navigated our news: offering corrections and suggestions that all too often really saved our skin from writers pit-falls of excess wordage, sensitive issues that needed to be abandoned, excess emphasis on our own pet-peeves. I know that Jule was opposed to physician assisted death and spent her final days working on that issue as she herself was dying and in palliative care. A strong Christian woman, Jule will be welcomed into God’s everlasting embrace and into heavenly eternity with loved ones. Let us carry on her hopes and dreams for us and make her proud.

Wanda Harrison
Jule was passionate about her job and strived for perfection with every week’s edition.  When I asked her a question about anything, she dug until she could find the appropriate answer and never let anything stand in her way until she was satisfied.  Then, on the other end, could be full of compassion when it was necessary.  Kind to the end, I will never forget her and miss her terribly.

Pearl Killingbeck
All the communities are so shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Jule Koch.  Sympathy to her family and to her newspaper family.  She will be very missed.

Chrisine Teal
Sincere condolences to the family of Jule Koch - she was the pillar of the News and will be missed dearly.  We enjoyed working with her in our years as correspondent for Parham/Tichborne as she was so supportive of us when we went through issues a couple of years ago. She was always checking in with us to make sure we were ok and to keep us on the straight and narrow and was a stickler for deadlines. She was driven by the intricate details - times, places and ensuring that we had names spelled correctly.
Rest in Peace dear friend.

Linda Rush
I met Jule many years ago at a craft show, where she was selling these very amazing little dolls she had made. Later, after the death of her first husband, I knew her as a basket maker – one of my very favourite rocking chairs was given decades more life when Jule re-caned it for me. I still sit in it every day. And I remember Jule saying she would NEVER take on such a picky, exacting job again. She was the most gentle, kind and sincere soul, and so very capable at whatever she turned her hand to. I would never have guessed that what she would turn that capable hand to would be as a business manager, but after the death of her second beloved husband, and my friend, Dave Brison, that is just what she did. She became a rock of stability and good sense at the Frontenac News, which had been owned by Dave and then became a wonderful partnership between Jule and Jeff Green. It was in this role that I knew her best, as I volunteered in the office of the News, and then as a correspondent. Always calm, steady, helpful, tolerant and able to quickly problem solve the host of weird and various issues that arise continuously in such an enterprise. I can barely imagine the News without her. My heart goes out to her children and family, and especially to Jeff and his family who will miss her dreadfully. I, too, feel very sad that the earth is no longer a home for her very special spirit.

Marily Seitz
I met Jule often out and about in the community however most of my interaction with her came through the Ompah column. She was amazing. How she was able to keep straight all the dates and events in all of the villages I do not know. I do know that she caught my errors when I wrote a hurried column. She would checked with me quickly and never lost her patience. We are feeling a hole in our hearts with the news of her death. She was our main Frontenac News contact and we shall miss her quiet capable ways. Blessings to her family.

Martina Field
The first time I met Jule, was at a craft show in the early 90's when we first moved to the area. Jule was weaving baskets at that time, beautiful baskets from willow and dogwood.  She worked at it during the entire show, as we all talked with each other and customers throughout the weekend, Jule worked away. At the end of the show, Jule had completed more than one basket and had enjoined in the visiting to boot. Jule never wasted any time. She always had a project, or many, on the go. And she was so eager to share her excitement about whatever it was that she was now up to. Whether it was gathering some native plant to cook up, running a newspaper or re-building an old log house to make her home, Jule went ahead and bravely took on whatever she needed to do. She often would teach herself how do these things by trial and error. And she accomplished so much. Just this past summer, she built a gazebo and a boat shelter and was planning to put up a zip line for her grandchildren.  Jule went about all of this very humbly and quietly, not wishing to attract attention or accolades.  She just did stuff, lots of stuff, had fun doing it and loved sharing her delight in it all. Jule was also one of the most down to earth people I know, wishing for nothing but to live simply and to enjoy the love of her family. And yet, she had such an interest in others that she made us feel that she loved so many of us as if we too were her family.  I will miss the comfort and ease of her love for all of us, her infectious interest in everything, and I can only wish that I might learn through her example

Chava Field-Green
My first memory of Jule is one my first memories. I was 4 or 5, and was helping my Mum and Jule fold Craft Inroads Studio Tour flyers. I remember how strong her basket-making hands were, she could fold 8 or 9 flyers at a time and they would be symmetrical. I could barely do two at a time, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone had to redo my helpful contributions. When I think back on this memory I think about how I must have subconsciously been learning about the power of community and also the power of women’s strength. That many hands made light work, especially with Jule’s hands among that many.
I’ve learned a lot from Jule over my lifetime, she helped teach me the ropes at the Frontenac News, and we spent countless hours driving to and from Toronto talking about life. We never really discussed our different political values, only the ones that we had in common such as our mutual love of re-using materials. When I moved home for a few months last year I worked at the newspaper. Jule had been undergoing Chemotherapy for her breast cancer and she had lost a lot of the strength in her hands. Yet she still managed to build a slide at her house. She had been collecting plastic strapping that hold the flyers to the pallets they arrive on and she really wanted to make something out of them. One afternoon she taught me how to make a basket out of this seemingly one time use material. She guided me with the enthusiasm and love that she bestowed on so many of us as we collaborated at the newspaper and in the community.
My basket is by no means as beautiful as her willow creations, but I’m so thankful to have a memory of our time together. A memory that will help to inspire me to create, to serve and work in my communities, to treat everyone I meet with respect no matter who they are or what they believe. Thank you Jule, for being such a solid human being and role model, you will be missed.