Wichard van Heuven
12/25/34-8/11/24
Dr. Wichard (Wick) van Heuven of Moretown, passed away peacefully on August 11, 2024, at his Vero Beach winter residence at the age of 89.
Wick first came to The Valley in the late 50s during his medical training in Connecticut and New York. Like so many others of his time, he came to ski, mostly at Mad River Glen, and to revel in the weekend mountain life. He loved the view from a field above the Moretown Common and asked the farmer, Elmer Lee, if he could camp on his land. Eventually, he purchased the property, the old Chase Farm, and the Lees moved into a cottage nearby. He admiringly told the tale of finding Mr. Lee and a couple of octogenarian friends re-roofing his “new” cottage.
So, Wick, aged 29, found himself with an old farmhouse, a tiny milkhouse, and 14 cows. He put an ad in the paper and walked the cows down to Middlesex for a Saturday sale. Wick then met Connie Hay who was working as a schoolteacher in Fayston. They married in 1967 with Wick initially commuting weekly by plane from Albany, where he worked as an ophthalmologist at Albany Medical Center.
They had two children, Jay and David, and continued to spend time in tThe Valley both in the winter, and, increasingly, in the summer, for the next 60 years. After a distinguished career as an ophthalmologist, largely at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Wick semi-retired to The Valley and continued to see patients part-time at UVM's Berlin clinic. In his early 80s, at the dining room table in Moretown, he wrote his final book, “The Eye: Window to Body and Soul: An Ophthalmologist's Odyssey,” a collection of short stories collected from 50 years of practice as an eye doctor.
Connie, known for her warmth, dry wit, and her love of art and painting, volunteered for hospice and was an all-around great mom and lady. She passed in 2020. Wick was never the same and he had begun suffering from what became multiple myeloma. In his last years he could be found at the Red Hen where he took breakfast almost every day.
He really loved The Valley. In his prime he would shovel the pond for skating in winter, write limericks as clues to find Christmas gifts hidden in the woods, and write poetry, once sending a long poem to his favorite Robert Frost. He found solace in stacking stone walls, cross-country skiing, golfing at Sugarbush with Connie, and regularly visiting the Waitsfield Farmers Market. He may have been the ultimate flatlander coming from Holland as a child, but he appreciated Vermont like no other place on Earth.
