And what I’ve found extraordinary in their voices is a depth of the genuineness and sincerity all so strongly associate with the woman who was with us for 70 years.
Emphasizing his words – pausing between each one -- former Springfield Police Chief Steve Moody called her “one of the most compassionate, perceptive, empathetic people I’ve ever met.”
Mitchell graduated from Springfield Catholic Central High School, received her RN degree at Clark State University and was a student in Antioch University’s Human Resources Master’s program. She was a behavioral health nurse at Rocking Horse and Clark County Mental Health Services.
Her obituary said she was known and deeply respected in the Springfield/Yellow Springs area for her lifelong vigorous commitment to and engagement with children’s development, anti-violence, restorative justice, civil rights and peace efforts.
Moody was a captain decades back when the local advocacy group Justice, Action, Mercy was protesting police treatment of minorities in Springfield. Mitchell was part of the group and quickly became someone “I would seek out for counsel,” he said.
“A lot of time, they were tough situations.” Mitchell wasn’t afraid to plunge into the issues of a world that “isn’t all puppy dogs and fairy tales,” Moody said. But even in those circumstances, “she treated us all with that openness and that love and that empathy.”
While working with Mitchell on the Global Education and Peace Network formed to counter stereotypes against Muslims following Sept. 11 attacks, Cheryl DeGroat Dover noticed a habit of Mitchell’s that was part of her success in sensitive situations.
“When there was a big conversation going on anything to do with race or ethnicity,” she said, “what I most remember is her silence.” A look at Mitchell during those silences usually found her intent on the unfolding conversation.
“And then at the end of everything,” DeGroat Dover said, “she would come up with something that was very intentional, but she didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
“She was a master at thinking things through in a way that you’d say to yourself: I’m going to think about that for a while. She understood the power of words.”
DeGroat Dover’s comments perfectly describe the patience and diplomacy Mitchell demonstrated in helping me sort through attitudes and ideas about race.
As one of my friends who had a similar experience with Mitchell said: “I didn’t have anybody else in my world that could be as honest and gentle and firm as she was.”
Referred to later in her career as a “behavioral health nurse,” Mitchell began her career as a registered nurse who possessed what nearly all who knew her thought of as a “sweet spot” for or “magic touch” with children.
To Ellen Stickney, who began working as Mitchell’s partner in that field in 1985 “and kind of never stopped,” there’s little mystery about the reasons why Mitchell was so effective with children.
“Well, number one would be that she loved them -- that she cared about them,” Stickney said. “She had a real good ability to connect with them and let them know that their feelings were important, they mattered and they made sense.”
In that way, Stickney said, “she helped kids to make sense of their lives.”
Those same qualities, of course helped to get along with all of us older kids.
But because Mitchell was working with children of alcoholics and children who had been physically, sexually and emotionally abused, Stickney said the two had to rely on one another to find “that balance of being able to empathize with a child and accept what’s going on without becoming overwhelmed by it yourself.”
To echo Moody, those children didn’t live in world of fairy tales and puppies., either.
Stickney said Mitchell had “that lovely combination of strength and tenderness that (allowed her) to hold a lot of people’s difficult stories and feelings but help them deal with them.”
Again, that goes for both children and adults.
Beth Dixon, another longtime champion of Clark County, leaned on Mitchell’s strength during a time when the two of them were called to a fourth-grade classroom to help children deal with sudden death of one of their classmates under particularly difficult circumstances.
“It was so hard,” Dixon said.” At the end of a day, “I was blubbering, and she’s just holding me up with her tiny body. Her shoulders are so small. But she was so strong for me.”
In addition to helping children deal with the nearly unspeakable, Mitchell encouraged children to find their voices. Dixon invited her to help with a project that helped students from four Clark County high schools imagine and develop their own stories for broadcast on WYSO-FM, the Yellow Springs-based public radio station.
Dixon called it “the perfect gig” for a person who always encouraged adults to listen to and value younger people in a way Dixon felt valued in Mitchell’s presence.
“When she was with me, she made me feel she wouldn’t rather be with anybody else. She was so plugged in to your words and your ideas and your thoughts.” That required Mitchell to develop a technique Lou Ann Horstman first noticed in the fall of 1981 when she did her master’s degree field work under Mitchell.
“I watched her do it in groups over and over again,” Horstman said, first, at the office, later after services at their shared parish, St. Raphael Catholic Church, which hosted Mitchell’s funeral service.
Mitchell would be standing and giving full attention to one friend when another would walk up. Mitchell immediately would wrap her fingers around the person’s wrist and not let go until she had a chance for a proper greeting.
The same open quality helped her to connect to her friends’ circle of friends -- the children, aunts, uncles and out-of-town visitors connected of the Horstman and so many other families.
And with people new to the community.
“She’s one of the first people that I met from within the community when I became the director of Project Woman,” said Laura Baxter.
Baxter said Mitchell was “a powerhouse” when focused on any mission and often quoted Mitchell’s slogan in the battle against community violence: “We have to make the effort for peace shout louder than the violence.
In every setting, “She looked into the heart of a person and saw the human being,” Baxter said. “I always felt it was part of her heart that was meeting the part of your heart. I believe she lived that.”
When he came to the city and started organizing the LBGTQ+ group Equality Springfield, Rick Incorvati said people repeatedly told him: “Oh, you’ve got to meet Winkie Mitchell.”
“I think she had a different way of finding value in things,” he said. “For her what was valuable would be someone finding affirmation or someone recognizing an error. I think she would devote her life to helping people find their best selves.”
Dr. James Duffee, founder of the Rocking Horse Center, said Mitchell’s essence is “hard to encapsulate” but was apparent to him the day she walked into the center and announced she needed to work there.
“She was in touch with something fundamental about what’s good about living and what’s good about life. She was listening to her inner direction and inner spirt, and she followed it.”
Duffee said that spirit drew a woman some described as “90 percent spirit and 10 percent body” into work that required her to carry “a heavy weight -- and she carried it.”
Now that Mitchell, a community institution, is gone the question arises as to who might if not replace her, carry the load she did.
Fully appreciative of all she did, Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland, in calling others forth, sounded a bit like a football coach whose star player is lost for the season and likely more.
“We will miss her greatly, and other people are going to have to step up to fill the void,” he said.
In an inspiring Facebook post, Incorvati agreed, putting it this way: “On a day like this one, when the Springfield community has lost a true pillar and when Winkie’s friends and family are processing difficult news, she would likely be teaching us to take care of each other in our grief and, once we’re all good again, to continue working diligently on behalf of those who might benefit from the support and care of their neighbors.”
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