Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk

From Seed to Tree to Fruit: A Daughter’s Memoir of Grief and Healing

In this heartfelt memoir, Mlynarczyk travels back to memories of growing up as a transplanted Northerner in the segregated South of the 1950s. At the center of this quest is her father, Bert C. Williams, a botanist in the Biology Department at the University of Alabama. A beloved teacher and naturalist at the university, he was a valued mentor for the young E. O. Wilson. Dr. Williams was a member of the University Committee on Nuclear Studies, and for several summers he conducted botanical research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Everything changed in March of 1954, when an ambulance arrived in front of the family home and took him to the psychiatric ward of a hospital in Birmingham. Three months later, he died at Bryce Hospital, the state mental institution.

In her struggle to come to terms with the trauma of her father’s sudden and unexpected mental illness and death, Mlynarczyk recalls childhood memories of her parents, sister, grandmother, and many others in the small university town of Tuscaloosa. As readers revisit the past alongside her, they will come to see what can be gained when we look back at our loved ones in all their complexity. If we are fortunate, we learn to love them in new and unexpected ways.

Biography

Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk is Professor Emerita of English at the City University of New York. She has published books and articles related to student journal writing, basic writing, connections between personal and academic writing, and researching lived experience.

Publication: Fall 2024