Obituary: Flora Holley Whitmore, 1986-2024 

click to enlarge

• Courtesy
• Flora Whitmore

Flora Holley Whitmore, born in St. Johnsbury, Vt., in the year of Halley’s Comet, commemorated in her name, died a month and two days after her 38th birthday, more than seven years after being belatedly diagnosed with inoperable neuroendocrine cancer in December 2017.

A musician, poet, music therapist, and health care and self-care advocate, especially for those living with invisible chronic diseases, she brought joy into any and every gathering and activity in which she took part. Her laugh could galvanize a room as much as her unmatched socks and eclectic style, despite the necessary poisons and potions which became her daily fare.

A musician from her toddler days growing up in St. Johnsbury, matching pitch with a vacuum cleaner and dancing to music in her crib, she played violin and piano and sang before she could read books or music. Despite a brief foray into musical theater throughout primary school (a brief period as stage manager for the Green Mountain Cabaret in Burlington, Vt., wouldn’t come until she returned from Canada), despite the recommendations from public school personnel to give up her musical activities to improve her academics instead of receiving accommodations for learning disabilities, and despite the encouragement of a college that she pursue a career in writing instead, she pursued music studies in university. As a member of the middle school orchestra in Essex Junction, Vt., and an alumna of Essex High School and the Vermont Youth Orchestra, Flora continued to play violin, finally traveling to Montréal for violin lessons. She studied piano on weekends with Mary Anthony Cox in East Craftsbury, Vt., who also taught at the Juilliard School during the week and founded the Craftsbury Chamber Players. She formally studied singing with Evelyn Kwanza during high school and was able to able to recover the lost final consonants of her undetected Vermont accent. The addition of percussion and guitar through her music therapy program further enlarged her musical tool kit.

Canadian music programs were a better fit than a U.S. liberal education and the math requirements. Flora was an undergraduate for three years in music performance (violin) at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, followed by two years at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. While in Wolfville, she became a student gardener in the Harriet Irving Botanical Garden. Following the completion of the bachelor of music therapy degree and despite a bow arm shattered in a motor vehicle accident, she moved to Toronto and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital for a clinical music therapy internship.

A work visa allowed her to build experience in music therapy work, as well as barista skills, but not enough to qualify for permanent residency. She returned to Vermont and qualified as a board-certified music therapist. She became a music clinician and K though 12 music teacher at the Soar Learning Center in St. Albans, part of Northwest Counseling & Support Services. That was followed by work as a music therapist in Chittenden and Grand Isle counties, as well as freelance musical gigs. After her diagnosis and treatments, she cut back on working in the schools to make room for medical appointments, COVID-19 and Cushing’s disease. Somehow, in between, she managed to become a youth librarian in the St. Albans Free Library, doing music with kids, completing special projects and falling in love with library work.

COVID-19 took her out of the library and into her attic, from which she donned a green wig and goggles and produced a weekly music program for kids on Facebook, Miss Flora’s Polka Dot Playground. This was featured in an article by the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation on April 8, 2020, titled “Miss Flora to the Rescue.”

Always and still writing poems, sometimes on scraps of any kind of paper, “Wait a minute,” Flora would say, in the middle of a conversation. “I have to write something down.” Her writing continued throughout all of this; some of her poems are now posted online as F White on Hello Poetry, the latest in a succession of poetry websites. (They were finally collected in a small book published by her mother but ignored by Flora.)

By now an expert in medical advocacy, both from personal necessity and because she had become a magnet for friends and friends of friends with serious health problems, she took to cyberspace to develop, edit and produce the Invisible Voices Project, a website aimed at those living with chronic illness who appeared perfectly well, as she did for much of her illness. At the time of her death, she had been working on a book that was the outgrowth of her previous online chronicle of her experience with stage IV neuroendocrine cancer of the pancreas with liver mets and was to include Flora’s wisdom and experience in self-advocacy and being heard.

Flora’s interests included manga and anime; reading recipes; trying unusual foods; dressing up; collecting and writing songs; growing lavender; planting and transplanting in two countries; advocacy for patients with invisible diseases; transposing songs by ear on musical instruments; intentionally singing just off-key to drive her mother crazy; doing improv; playing gigs on violin and guitar; plumbing and making music with her dad; being a caregiver, music teacher and role model; making friends; and hanging out with her brother.

Spunky, with a laugh that just invited you in and embraced you, Flora made any room brighter, livelier, joyous and magical. And as one of her Canadian friends said, she has left Flora-shaped holes in many hearts, especially those of her parents, Lois and David Whitmore; her older-by-twelve-years brother, Luke; her partner, John Chittick; and his daughter, Opal.