Winery owner benefactor of poor
Marijke Byck-Hoenselaars May 3, 1933 - January 5, 2006
By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT (Jan 7, 2006)
A couple of miles and many socioeconomic boundaries separate the Gold Coin Motel on Mendocino Avenue from Marijke Byck-Hoenselaars' winery in the Fountaingrove hills.
But every Friday morning for more than 20 years, Byck-Hoenselaars - who died Thursday after being hit by a car on Old Redwood Highway - dropped her sheen of affluence to try to bridge that distance.
Calling herself Marie, wearing her children's old sweatpants and driving a pickup, she delivered Catholic Worker food packages to residents at the Gold Coin, a horseshoe of green-painted brick buildings that is home to janitors, assembly workers, students and others pressed by economic hardship or other ills.
She brought holiday gifts for residents' children. At times, she contributed to someone's rent, always anonymously. She helped a mentally ill woman find subsidized housing and for years, every two weeks, took her to eat, shop and talk.
"There were dozens and dozens of people like that," said her husband, Walter Byck, a retired radiologist and co-owner of Paradise Ridge Winery.
The accident is under investigation. Byck-Hoenselaars was hit by an SUV as she ran across the street. Her husband had let her off on the west shoulder so she could cross to her pickup, parked near Cardinal Newman High School.
Born May 3, 1933, in Hees, Holland, Byck-Hoenselaars trained as a nurse, and in 1961 married Byck, whom she'd met in a New York City hospital cafeteria. The couple opened Paradise Ridge Winery in 1994, on land they bought in 1978 and turned into vineyards.
Byck-Hoenselaars treated the winery as a home, and ran it as such, with a firm, loving hand, family members said.
"She was real stern, real old-fashioned, but a real great lady," said Mitchell Williams, 24, a PG&E worker who spent two years as a catering captain for the winery's events.
Lori Darling, co-owner of Cafe Lolo, a former downtown Santa Rosa restaurant that catered most of the winery's functions, said Byck-Hoenselaars was a driven, exacting leader.
"She kept me motivated," Darling said. "She compelled me to always do my job well, because she demanded that of the people she loved and cared for."
