Stephen Grellet - Suzanne Wilkins Way - Corvallis, OR - Etched in Stone on Waymarking.com

Located along a bike path and just south of the Oregon State University boathouse building is a plaque monumented on a boulder that reads:

SUZANNE WILKINS WAY IN MEMORY OF SUZANNE ELIZABETH WILKINS MAY 25, 1967 - May 6, 1990 "I SHALL PASS THIS WAY BUT ONCE - ANY GOOD I CAN DO, ANY KINDNESS I CAN SHOW, LET ME DO IT NOW, FOR I SHALL NOT PASS THIS WAY AGAIN."                                                                       OREGON STATE CREW

I was able to locate a web page from the OSUBeavers.com website that mentions Suzanne Wilkins as part of the Oregon State University rowing and crew teams.

Suzanne Wilkins rowed from 1988 to 1990 for OSU and was known for her work ethic and positive attitude. She died in the spring of her 2nd year at OSU, when she was struck by a car on her way home from the Crew Docks. The bike path under the Van Buren and Harrison bridges is also named in her honor.

Each year the crew team gives out the The Suzanne Wilkins award to a female crew member which recognizes the most inspirational varsity oarswoman.

Stephen Grillet (2 November 1773 – 16 November 1855) was a prominent Quaker missionary. Born Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier, son to a counsellor of King Louis XVI, at 17 he entered the Kings body-guard; during the French Revolution of 1792 he was sentenced to be executed, but escaped and eventually fled Europe to the United States in 1795, where in 1796, he joined the Religious Society of Friends.

The quote on Suzanne Wilkins memorial plaque, and variants of it, have been been widely circulated as a Quaker saying since at least 1869, and attributed to Grellet since at least 1893. W. Gurney Benham in Benham's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words (1907) states that though sometimes attributed to others, "there seems to be some authority in favor of Stephen Grellet being the author, but the passage does not appear in any of his printed works." It appears to have been published as an anonymous proverb at least as early as 1859, when it appeared in Household Words : A Weekly Journal.

It has also often become attributed to the more famous Quaker William Penn, as well as others including Mahatma Gandhi and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Address: Suzanne Wilkins Way Website: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/06/2022 Tootsie.22 visited it