A Golden Reminder of a Remarkable Friend

by Susan Weisfeld
Scarsdale Meeting

When I came to Scarsdale Friends Meeting over 25 years ago, seeking to find a spiritual path compatible with my beliefs, I found many wonderful mentors. Among them were Bill Vickrey and his wife Cecile, who we all called Cile. They were never too busy to answer my myriad of questions and we had many interesting discussions on a number of topics. I knew Bill was a professor of economics at Columbia, but had no idea he was world famous. Cile was a wonderful warm and supportive f/Friend, and member of an interesting Quaker group that followed the philosophy of Carl Jung. She was part of my clearness committee when I became a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting.

Bill’s messages in meeting often concerned wage equality, ideas on how to make full employment a reality, and remembrances from Florida Avenue Meeting in Washington DC. But what I didn’t know was that congestion pricing was pretty much his idea—I wonder what he would think of the controversy now happening in NYC! EZ-Pass is also the result of his ideas to ease travel congestion. Bill also formulated the idea behind ranked choice voting, also known as Quadratic voting, now becoming more popular throughout the U.S.

Imagine my shock while driving to hear on the radio that Bill Vickrey, who had just won the Nobel Prize in Economics with co-economist James Mirlees, had a heart attack and died on the side of the road while returning from a conference. 

My friend—dead? Nobel Prize? Bill Vickrey?? Cannot be true—but it was. All of us were in shock and rallied to help Cile through this sad time. Bill’s good friend, C. Lowell Harris, another Columbia economist, went to Sweden and accepted the prize in Bill’s stead and brought the Nobel medallion home to Cile.

Years later, Cile sold her house and had an estate sale with another accomplished and supportive Friend, Bill Seltzer, as executor. After the sale he brought me the heavy beautiful golden medallion and said “Cile feels you would know what to do with it.” That was incredibly moving, but the responsibility was somewhat daunting. But way will open, and it did: I knew about the Swarthmore Quaker Historical Library and called the librarian, who said her husband would meet me in Manhattan to get the medal. Before that I brought it to NYYM Sessions twice to show Friends, because Bill was one of us and here was a chance to see something beautiful and memorable.

And then Covid came, and I couldn’t get the medal to Haverford. Last summer I went to FGC Gathering at Haverford and met both librarian curators for the Quaker collections. NYYM papers and memorabilia are at Swarthmore and all Friends are welcome for a personal tour to see our history and to do any research on Friends in the US. And there you can see the gold medal that reflects the world’s recognition of this wonderful man’s accomplishments.

Writing this, I miss Bill all over again, but I am also so honored to have been given the responsibility of this part of his legacy.