Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Remembering Roanoke's Lib Wilhelm
Lindsey Nair
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Amy Lanham's husband got his first look at Lib Wilhelm when she arrived outside their home in a beat-up station wagon.
When the tiny, white-haired lady got out with her walker, he wondered just who in the heck his wife had hired to cater their party.
"Of course," Lanham said, "it was wonderful."
Years later, Lanham has taken over the business that Wilhelm built for more than four decades in Roanoke.
And although Wilhelm, who died April 3 at age 86, hasn't catered in several years, her name still conjures up thoughts of the most well-planned and well-attended parties in town.
"She catered all the fanciest, most expensive, lavish weddings," said Wilhelm's daughter-in-law, Lainy Wilhelm. "All the largest cocktail parties and the biggest celebrations. She had all the key jobs sewn up for years when she was catering."
There was a reason for that: Everyone who knew Lib says she was a tireless professional, the sort of woman who threw everything she had into her job and still had energy left over to do the flowers on her church altar or tend her son's vegetable garden.
"I remember times when we were doing 30 to 40 days [in a row] without a day off," said Tracy Hamilton, Lib's former partner. "I worked with her through a double hip replacement and heart surgery and she still kept coming back."
One of my predecessors, Nancy Gleiner, wrote a profile of Lib in 2000. At that time, she was 79 years old, training Lanham and finally thinking about retirement.
"Thinking" being the operative word. According to Lib's son, Lee Wilhelm, his mother didn't officially retire for another two or three years.
She first started catering on the side out of her home in the late 1950s, while working social events for St. John's Episcopal Church.
Through the decades, she worked at the YWCA, the Shenandoah Club and the Patrick Henry Hotel, all the while still catering on the side.
Finally, her client list grew so long with affluent Roanokers and their companies that catering was all she had time for. But she never did it for the money, her family said.
"She showed her love and affection through food," Lainy Wilhelm said.
Lib's granddaughter, Kristin Breakell, can attest to that. Her grandma made sure she had a beautiful butterfly cake for every birthday. And when Kristin was in high school, she'd stop at her grandma's house after class to raid the candy jar and hear about the latest party.
"She loved to talk to me about who she saw, the flowers they'd used, the colors," Breakell said.
When Jim Schaal and Hamilton started working for Lib in the 1990s, they thought they knew enough about catering.
They were wrong.
"Lib took me from institutional catering to gourmet catering," Schaal said. "She was a fantastic mentor."
According to Schaal, who now owns his own successful catering business, "Lib taught us up, down, left, right, everything you need to know about catering. She did have an eye for making things grand."
Even when she was too busy planning with customers to cook the food herself, Lib tasted everything that left her kitchen.
If it wasn't right, she put her foot down because, as Hamilton put it, "there was no pussyfooting around" with Lib.
"If her name was on it, she knew how it was going to be," said her son, Lee.
Larry Bly, who hosts cooking shows for Cox Cable Roanoke and writes restaurant reviews for roanoke.com, said Wilhelm could always put on a fine spread, no matter the budget.
Bly always teased Lib about her famous cheese slaw, which she served in a hollowed-out head of cabbage. But he says there was never anything ordinary or passe about her food.
"It was not unusual to have Asian influences or Thai influences. That was truly amazing about her," he said. "I used to kid her about the cabbage cheese spread, but honest to God, she moved well beyond that."
I'd be willing to bet that almost every one of the 250 people who crowded into Wilhelm's memorial service last week had fond memories of that cheese slaw. If they didn't, they got to try it at the reception.
Hamilton said the service put a smile on her face, especially the tales of Wilhelm's misadventures while driving food to the parties.
"She kind of drove like a bat out of hell," Hamilton said. "I think she took someone's car door off one time."
That fast pace of living, along with perfectionism, followed Wilhelm almost until the day she died.
She even found the energy to complain about the food at Our Lady of the Valley, where she spent her final years.
Said her son, "I'd tell her, 'Hey, be quiet. You need to stay a resident over here. Don't start a riot in the dining room.' "
Did you know Lib Wilhelm? Share your memories on my blog.
If you and your mom are often mistaken for twins like Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson (right), this could be your time to shine. Show us your striking resemblance for a special Mother's Day issue of Inside Out on May 8. We also want to hear about any comments you hear about your look-alike status.
Send your individual photos and a brief explanation to extra@roanoke.com by April 25. Or you can mail to Look-alikes, c/o Stephanie Ogilvie, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke VA 24010. Don't forget both of your names, addresses and daytime telephone numbers.
