Jeanne-Marie Bergheim Wyld, age 81, of Urbana, died at home peacefully early Saturday morning, May 30th 2009, after battling cancer for some two years. Funeral services will be on Thursday, June 4, 2009, at 2 p.m., at Wesley United Methodist Church, Urbana. The Reverend Dan King Crede of Wesley Church will officiate. There will be no visitation. Burial will be in Woodlawn Cemetery, Urbana. Mrs. Wyld was born November 15, 1927, in Moorhead, Minnesota, the daughter of Mildred M. and Dr. Martin C. Bergheim. She moved to Portland, Oregon, with her mother and sister in 1942. She married Henry W. (Bill) Wyld, Jr., also of Portland, on June 11, 1955. He survives. Also surviving are a daughter, Sandra, of Athens, Georgia, a grandson, Keven, of Champaign, and a sister, Gail-Marie Shearer, of Livermore, California. She was pre-deceased by a daughter, Karen, and a son, Derek. Mrs. Wyld graduated in chemistry from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1949. She attended Reed under an Aaron M. Frank Scholarship, awarded to one Oregon student a year to attend college with full tuition and fees. She then went to Stanford University for graduate work, as a four-year recipient of an Atomic Energy Commission Predoctoral Fellowship, and graduated with a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1955. In 1954, Mrs. Wyld went to Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, as a chemistry instructor under sponsorship of the Ford Foundation Fund for the Advancement of Education, and she remained there as a regular instructor the following year.

In June 1955, she married Mr. Wyld, then an instructor at Princeton University, in the Vassar College Chapel, and moved to New Jersey. She and Mr. Wyld had kept in touch since attending Reed College together as students. While in New Jersey, Mrs. Wyld taught chemistry at Trenton College. The Wylds moved to Urbana in 1957, where Mr. Wyld was a professor of physics at the University of Illinois until his retirement in 1995.

After coming to Urbana, Mrs. Wyld continued to teach chemistry part time, as an instructor at Parkland College and part-time teaching assistant at the University of Illinois, and she served on the Auxiliary Board of the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Later, her interests shifted to politics and conservation. She was a long-time active member in the League of Women Voters in Urbana, compiling a booklet on Urbana government in 1964. She became the first Democrat to be elected to the Urbana City Council from Ward 7, in 1965, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1969. While on the City Council, she was active in zoning considerations and also helped formulate the first Urbana sign and billboard control ordinance. One of her main concerns as a council member was to help local residents preserve their neighborhoods, and have their voices heard by the government. Mrs. Wyld was elected to the Champaign County Board in 1972 and served 6 years. She was a member of the founding committee for the Champaign County Head Start program, from 1974 to 1978. Her other main interests on the Board were zoning, planning, and the County Office on Aging.

Mrs. Wyld was also active during the 1960s on the Save Allerton Park Committee, a group working to save the park from flooding by the Oakley Dam, a Corps of Engineers project to provide a supplemental reservoir for the city of Decatur. In 1968, she was sent to Washington, D.C., as emissary of the committee, to present initial petitions with 80,000 signatures of Illinois residents opposed to the dam to Illinois' congressmen and senators. While there, she met with officials in the Department of the Interior, the Treasury Budget Department, and Army Corps of Engineer officers at the Pentagon, then-Senator Everett Dirksen and other Illinois Congressmen. She testified twice in Washington before the congressional Public Works Committee in opposition to the dam, along with other members of the Allerton committee. She spoke at many schools and public meetings to explain the potential permanent damage to Allerton Park. Later, the committee carried petitions to Washington with 160,000 signatures opposing the dam. Following the extensive opposition, the Oakley Dam was dropped from the Corps of Engineers' current projects, and eventually "decommissioned" and removed from the Corps plans completely. Besides her interest in conservation and politics, Mrs. Wyld liked gardening and music. In high school she was lead snare drummer with the Cambridge High School Marching Band, a Minnesota State award-winning band. From 1942 to 1944, she was solo snare drummer in the Portland (Oregon) Junior Symphony under Jacques Gershkowitz. Later, she and Bill were regular attendees of musical productions at the Krannert Center, in Urbana. Following Mrs. Wyld's retirement from the Champaign County Board, the family took care of Mr. Wyld's father in their home during the 1970s and Mrs. Wyld's mother during the 1980s. Their grandson Keven came to live with them in 1987. The Wylds and Keven travelled extensively after Mr. Wyld's retirement, to Turkey, Ecuador, the Caribbean, the north coast of Alaska, and two trips to China. More recently, the Wylds spent time visiting friends in Germany, taking a trip to the Greek Islands, a visit to Baja, Mexico, and a vacation in Puerto Rico. Mrs. Wyld was an active member of Wesley United Methodist Church in Urbana. Donations may be made to Wesley Church.