By Steve Flairty
KyForward columnist
For nearly three decades, Mike and Wilma Wilson carried on busy careers as music teachers in the Jefferson County Public School System. A marriage filled with the spirit of community involvement, they also performed as married couple actors in Bardstown’s noted musical drama, The Stephen Foster Story. Additionally (and amazingly), the couple found time to produce a long-running madrigal dinner as part of the Bardstown Community Theatre.
Now in their eighties, the Wilsons can look back proudly at a life of using their talents to bring joy to those around them.
Mike and Wilma Wilson (Photo provided)
Wilma taught at both the high school level where, she said: “You could create magic,” and later all levels of elementary. It required a lot of nightly preparation time as a high school teacher, and she switched to teaching elementary school in order to have time for the two children in their household. Mike served almost exclusively teaching at Louisville’s Fairdale High School.
What they did in stage work became pretty much a concurrent second career. In the Foster musical, they played the parents of Jane McDowell, the wife of Foster and the subject of the classic Foster song, I Dream of Jeannie. The role lasted over three decades until, Mike said with his typical playfulness: “We got too old to have a teenage daughter.”
Did the parts they played evolve over those many years? “We had a lot of ‘Janes,’ noted Wilma, “and different ‘Stephens.’ At one time they decided to have the script rewritten. That was quite challenging after you’ve said the same thing for 20 years. You have to adjust, but I never got tired of it.”
Wilma still finds herself heavily involved with the production, as she works with costuming. She likes it as much as she did the acting stint, even though there’s a lot of responsibility, especially as each of the characters has multiple outfits. “Each lady has four dresses,” she noted. “That means four things for her head, either bonnets or flowers or some kind of arrangement.” Along with those items, each has three pairs of gloves, “hoop” pantaloons, and two pairs of shoes. Male characters, fortunately, have fewer items.
Both Wilsons participated, additionally, in various Bardstown Community Theatre presentations along the way. According to Wilma, the biggest endeavor was a madrigal dinner they started called the Mid-Winter Feast, directed by Mike, who also helped with the props. Wilma worked with costuming. It ran for 22 years, a testament to the couple’s passion and perseverance for the art form.
“I didn’t actually write any of the script,” said Mike. “I compiled it from various sources, mostly folk tales and other things.” The presentation moved to several different locales during its stint, and finished at Kreso’s Restaurant, downtown Bardstown, which provided a strong dose of arts ambience.
The Wilsons appreciated the work of a local person, Mary Lou Hood, who produced Mid-Winter Feast every year. There was a dinner and pageantry…with many casting as peasants. It was quite an elaborate presentation, with “even the lighting of the candles on the table (being) part of the ceremony,” said Wilma. The cast, along with the audience, sang and there was serving of wassail (a kind of punch). And then there were the peasants, and that provoked a light-hearted remembrance from Wilma. “The first year we did it the peasants were literally in ‘rags,’” she said. “I found a mill outlet in North Carolina that had ugly material for a penny an inch. I had fun going through the boxes and picking out stuff I could use.”
It was a very good run for the show, but with its demanding workload and the couple’s advancing age, they finally brought Mid-Winter Feast to a close—long after most would have stopped. In doing so, they missed being around their musician friends, many coming from Louisville, who combined to make the presentation so successful. Their part was essential. “We always had the music rehearsals at our house,” she said. “We’d have dinner, then rehearse maybe five times, starting in the fall, and we’d try to fit everybody’s schedule because we had sixteen singers.”
Mike noted that there were many “unsung heroes” in Mid-Winter Feast,” and recalled the woman who “made a wonderful dragon costume and gave it to us. We used that dragon costume all that time.”
According to Wilma, the costumes have been stored and she hopes that eventually the madrigal dinner will be resurrected by someone else. For sure, the Wilsons demonstrated that such an endeavor could be done, and with excellence.
Though the couple has slowed their pace in their daily lives, they are planning a cruise in January, 2019. Mike has had a couple of open-heart surgeries and has some trouble with mobility, but he became interested in the cruise, said Wilma with a grin, “after he found that he could rent a scooter on the ship.”
I asked them what their driving force to keep active was. “Just getting up in the morning,” deadpanned Mike, who admitted that he’s always been partial to sleeping late in the mornings. For Wilma, her response appeared a little more dynamic. “I love getting up in the morning to see what this day is going to bring,” she said. “I’m not depressed and not worried. I look forward to have something to look forward to out there.”
It seems that the Wilsons and their music remains, as always, upbeat.
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)
