Lindsay Powell's Blog - Posts Tagged "sonia-st-james"
A Passion for Living: Celebration of A Life
'In Soniam': A Eulogy for Sonia St James (1942-2015)
On a Sunday a few weeks ago I was sitting with Sonia St James at her apartment in north west Austin. We had been meeting on Sunday afternoons for years. On that occasion, sitting on her settee she turned to me and asked if I would be willing to give a speech at her memorial. "Of course," I said, “I’m a biographer. I should be able to do that”. “Yes," she said, “you write about dead people all the time!”
A biographer needs good material to work with. A week after Sonia died, her daughter Chris Datzko asked me if I’d review Sonia’s obituary. I agreed to that too. It turned out I didn’t have much to do. No big surprise there: Sonia had written one for herself! In 2013!
Few people have either the chance or the time to consider what their lives have meant until it’s too late to do anything about it and make a course correction. In the movies it’s that moment when the hero, expiring his last breathe, asks ‘was I a good man?’ or ‘how did I do?’
An obituary tells a story, but it reads a bit like a resumé – a list of schools, jobs, survivors – and hers is very impressive indeed. You can read my ever so slightly edited version here… Tonight, however, is about celebration. How to account for the life and achievements of Sonia St James - mother, grandmother, aunt, friend? What should we remember her for?
Well. Guess what? (Or as she would say, 'are you ready for this, guys?') Sonia had her own ideas about that too. If you use Twitter - the social media tool for the hip and trendy, and being a trendy woman of the Twenty-first century she did – her profile's tagline at @stjaustin reads:
Entrepreneur, Muse to Creative Minds, Author, Artist.
So let’s take each in turn.
First, Sonia the entrepreneur. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as ‘one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business’. That was Sonia to a T. The extraordinary fact was that for someone in her senior years – she was 61 when I first met her – she had as many ideas and as much energy as a Harvard Business School graduate a third of her age.
One of the great appeals to her of entrepreneurship was the opportunity to travel. Born in Flint, Michigan she was the quintessential American, but she was one of the most outward looking people I have ever met. As she writes in her obituary “she pursued her international interests by traveling, listening and learning in 40 countries”.
One of those initiatives was TBN, a network for businesses in Austin. It is how I got to meet her in 2003. She had organized a business breakfast at an upscale café in north east Austin, off MoPac Expressway. I’d hardly registered to pick up my badge when she strode up, introduced herself to me and, noting my British accent, suggested I could help her on a project. That first encounter lead me to become an advisor to Technopolis Xchange. The journey which began with that experience revealed to me her mastery of the skills needed to get a business off the ground: networking; personal confidence; hard work, and frugality.
She was her business’ greatest ambassador. In building that concept she traveled far and wide – to Europe, Africa and all over the USA. But she didn’t stop there. After Technopolis came Training for Real Estate, eBooks Classes (on which we worked on together) and TORKA Sports Towels.
As a muse Sonia saw potential in others - that often we did not see in ourselves - and helped us fulfill it. Just watching how she created businesses from nothing inspired me to take a chance – for me in property investment and writing/publishing. The ancient Greeks imagined there were nine muses who covered the arts, poetry, dance and music in all its varieties. I hope they’ve set aside a seat for the tenth – Sonia. Suitably the name Sonia is of Greek or Russian origin, meaning ‘wisdom’.
At a particular moment in my career, she sat me down and we worked through her patented Acceler process. It was intense, but with her usual discipline and focus at the end of it, as was her goal, you had a path forward. When the future looks uncertain to have someone show you that you have within yourself what you need to face it, and offer encouragement and support, is a priceless gift. Her wisdom was to see change as a chance to renew.
Third, Sonia the author. According to her own record Sonia wrote “over 40 guides and manuals.” They include Don’t Diet – The Handbook on Kicking the Aging Habit and Wall Street to Main Street, a book about self-directed IRAs. (You can still order them on Amazon.)
One of the new books she was researching, but sadly did not complete, was about preparing for, and surviving, a hip replacement operation - she having survived two of them herself. As in so many ways she turned a challenge – in this case a serious personal medical matter – into something others could benefit from. My own first book, All Things Under the Sun, was born of her suggestion of compiling my collection of blog posts into a single volume when it appeared my first officially commissioned book might be late for the book signings I set up – and for that reason I dedicated it to her.
A Muse to others, Sonia was herself a creator of art. Her own style of painting was modern – abstract, primitive, dramatic, and always surprising. She found painting therapeutic, another outlet for her fertile mind, and enjoyed the work of the great masters. When we went to London it wasn’t the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum that we went to see but Roy Lichtenstein at the Tate Modern!
My own regret is that we never arranged a viewing of her work at a gallery: I think that would have been such a special event. When I thought of it she had become sick and I let it get in the way of me acting upon my impulse. Imperfection is part of life. To quote her favourite artist/singer and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, and her favourite song 'Anthem':
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
To this list of talents I am going to add two more.
Number five is the personal shopper. She lived well and had great personal style, appreciating quality and the finer things. Yet frugality was a hallmark of Sonia’s lifestyle. She would make the most of special offers and coupons! She’d always know the best deal on at Walgreens and whether the cat litter on sale at Target came with a $5 cash card! And she’d be sure to remind the guy at the checkout too… just in case he forgot.
She had an interesting approach to shopping. She'd pick different items, enthusing over their selling points. The ones she liked went in the cart. Then at the end of the shopping session, she’d do an audit: yes to this, no to that – but mostly no. She’d leave most articles behind. And even if she did buy the item, more often than not it would go back for a refund next day. That self denial takes a special kind of discipline, but on the positive side it offered her all the rush of finding the best buy without the expense! There’s a book in that somewhere.
Lastly there was Sonia the Pet Minder. Sonia was kind to animals. At her apartment off MoPac Expressway she semi-adopted a gorgeous, long-haired ginger cat. Like Sonia it was an independent thinker, a free agent, not one to constrained by rules. It liked to live outdoors as well as in. One day it brought back with it poison ivy on its fur coat. Sonia’s skin reacted badly and caused her no little discomfort. In fact it was a very nasty allergic reaction. That episode and the punitive fees apartment complexes impose on pet owners meant she did not own a pet of her own.
Lucky for me my indoor cats benefitted from her affection for moggies. While I was away in Britain she would take care of them. My oldest cat, a tabby called Tidus, became sick in 2015. I knew he had not long to live. She offered to care for him while I was away in California. A couple of days into my trip while at dinner she called me and tactfully broke the news of Tidus’ passing. She had found him on the floor by the window. He had died peacefully. She took care of the body too. Upon my return to Austin she presented me with a carefully wrapped, sealed package. She had kept his body in the freezer so that I could give him a proper burial in my own backyard. Sonia was always the practical mother!
So how did she do? In my books about ‘dead people’ I don’t have a chapter entitled ‘Conclusion’ as some biographers do. It seems very presumptuous of a writer to make a final judgement about someone – and opinions and mores change over time. I prefer the word ‘Assessment’. This then is my personal assessment of the late, great Sonia St James.
Now I can only speak for myself. She was my friend, and a very dear one to me. We were separated by a generation in age but her youthfulness and zest for life made that immaterial. Her impact was great and I still feel it. Whenever I write an email on Hotmail her email address always pops up first. I already miss her professional business and marketing advice, her texts about Downton Abbey on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre, her personal shopper skills, and in so many other ways. Knowing her changed me – for instance, I am now more entrepreneurial and willing to take a chance on something new.
Restless in life in facing her own death she showed remarkable calm, assurance, clear sightedness and dignity. To me she was the face of courage. Sonia was a scientist at heart and had strong views on religion. Quantum theory informs us that things are interconnected. She would joke with me that anyone who annoyed her while she was alive would get a visit from her from the other side.
So here is my spooky story. She died on 9 December. On 17th I was working on my new book in my home office, playing the Leonard Cohen song ‘Anthem’ on my Mac. I left the room for a moment to get a coffee. To get to my kitchen I have to go through my great room, which has a fireplace. I tend to keep the greetings cards on my mantelpiece in my great room long after the anniversary has passed because I like the artwork. When I came back I found two cards laying on the floor. They were both inscribed ‘Much Love, Sonia /S’.
Sonia liked taglines: her favourite quote from a poem by Leonard Cohen, was 'time does not age us, it merely unfolds us'. Personally I think that is too passive to use as an epitaph for our Sonia. She was an active person, filling her life with interactions with people. With that in mind a more suitable line would be,
She lived her life with passion and inspired the rest of us to do the same.
Please join me in a toast to Sonia.
Official Obituary Posted in Austin American-Statesman 5-6 January 2016:
Sonia St. James passed away on 9 December 2015 after courageously living with cancer for two-and-a-half years.
She was born in 1942 in Flint, Michigan. Her father, James St. James, was a French immigrant and engineer; her mother, Ulra Hall, was a seamstress and an artist. Sonia lived in Midland, Michigan with her children until 1980 when she moved to Texas to pursue a career in technology.
Sonia earned a B.A.A.S. degree from Texas State University, and a Systems Engineer Certificate from IBM. Over a lifetime of contribution she proved her abundant talents as a business leader, entrepreneur, author and artist.
She worked in executive management positions at Bergen Brunswig, Armada International, Warner-Amex Cable Communications, National Computer Systems, and Titan Corporation. Following her successful corporate career she used her natural talents for enterprise by building organisations of her own. Her Technical Business Network, Technopolis XChange, and other technology-related initiatives assisted communities in Texas to leverage opportunities in fast growing sectors of the economy. Her activities were reported by USA Today, CNNfn, CNET, Science & Society, MediaWire, as well as regional and international media.
As a self-styled 'Muse to creative minds' she helped others to realise their potential and share it with the wider community through her patented AccelerProcess© and the Acceler Model©. Her business ventures included the IRATraining seminars that teach individuals how to become self-directed retirement investors, and, in collaboration with Lindsay Powell, the eBookClasses seminars teaching authors how to be successful in digital publishing. Her last was Torka Sports Towels, which continues to thrive under the management of her son, Scott St James.
She served on the Governor of Texas Technology Commission, City of Austin Texas Mayor’s international Cabinet as a board member of the International Center of Austin (ICA), and the Advisory Board for the University of Texas Science, Technology and Society think tank. She was made an Honorary Citizen of Lubbock Texas in recognition of her leadership in the formation of the Lubbock Regional BioScience Initiative for West Texas, and for her ongoing service to the community. She hosted The Austin Players, a prestigious awards event celebrating technology companies and leaders. In 1999 she was named trade advisor to the JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization). In 2001 High Tech Austin named her a 'Mover and Shaker.'
Her impact reached far beyond Texas. Among her international engagements she was invited to speak at the European Union Partnership Conference in The Netherlands, the Warsaw Biotechnology Conference on Partnering in Poland, and the Bioscience Partnering Conference in Canada.
As an author she wrote Don’t Diet-The Handbook, Kicking The Aging Habit, the From Wall Street to Main Street Book series, over forty guides and manuals for IRATraining.com, and several other books for clients.
Her favorite quotation was 'time does not age us, it merely unfold us', coined by poet and musician, Leonard Cohen.
She is survived by her four children; Shelly Wolfe and husband Chris, Scott Leins, Jack Leins and fiancé Katy, Chris Datzko and husband Pete, and grandchildren Amber, Nick, JJ, Murphy, Taylor, and Quinn. She is preceded in death by her beloved grandson Dominic. Close to her children, she described them as 'entrepreneurial in spirit and independent in nature.'
