By Joyce Anderson
For the CVPost
I miss Cleo Powers.
Cleo was our poll worker. She sat behind a table in Trinity Lutheran Church’s Trinity Room, my family’s designated voting place. There was something grounding about Cleo’s presence. She was welcoming, but remained neutral. She was efficient, but not impatient. In the whirl of all that is election season in Wisconsin, Cleo was “steady as she goes.” I miss her.
I only knew Cleo peripherally. I would see her at meetings of the American Association for University Women. During AAUW’s annual fall book sale, she always was present, sorting books in preparation for their new owners.
That was about it – until I noticed a memorial plaque with Cleo’s picture in a first-floor alcove at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library. There was our former poll worker being honored for her library volunteer work.
Jan Geothel, a colleague and fellow book sale volunteer, recalls Cleo’s life-long work in libraries. It is a career that included 31 years serving in a variety of positions at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s McIntyre Library, including as acting director from 1996 to 1998. Cleo’s library work actually began in her small, Catholic elementary school library in Durand where, Goethel said, she “helped the nuns by mending books.”
Cleo’s May 2014 obituary stated, in part: “After retiring, Cleo volunteered at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library where she was the book sales chairperson for many years … She contributed countless hours and inspirational leadership to the success of dozens of events. During her tenure, profits generated by the event have increased dramatically.”
Increased dramatically indeed. L.E. Phillips Library Director John Stoneberg said that during Cleo’s 14 years as book sale coordinator, she and her Friends of the Library (http://www.ecpubliclibrary.info/friends-of-the-library) collected $250,000 in revenue.
The memorial plaque is a tribute to Cleo’s dedication, but it wasn’t the plaque that struck me. It was the alcove that was created to honor her “growing good” for the library.
It’s a lovely, quiet, peaceful space that overlooks a lawn, trees and a bridge over the Eau Claire River. With its tall, wide windows, the renovated area is a perfect place to view the changing seasons while reading or working on a laptop.
All are invited to visit this space, to sit there any time of the day or evening when the library is open. It’s a public place made beautiful for us all in Cleo’s memory.
Growing good.
According to the Teresa Kriese, the library’s business manager, who along with a small group of her co-workers designed the space, “The project came together quite nicely and we are all very happy with the results. The renovation of the space was funded by three very generous donations: the Cora Rust Owen Trust, the (Mildred) Gerland Estate and the Friends of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.”
Who were Cora Rust Owen and Mildred Gerland and why would they join hands with the Friends of the Library and with Cleo for our benefit to “grow good”?
For a while before she died, Mildred and I were part of the same faith community. Then in her early ’70s, Mildred was a highly spirited artist specializing in “found art,” which she exhibited in the upstairs of a Mondovi store.
Mildred also was an ardent tea drinker. I remember one conversation in which she proclaimed that at her funeral she wanted tea to be served exclusively. Then when guests asked for coffee, the kitchen workers would be instructed to say, “Oh, you want coffee? Just a minute. You’ll have to wait while I put the water on.” That was her response to years of being made to wait while Wisconsin coffee drinkers “put the water on” for her tea.
And who was Cora Rust Owen, who upon her death also left trust funds for the library?
You know Owen Park, the park with the tennis courts, the band shell and the play area that runs along the Chippewa River near the UW-Eau Claire campus? My research revealed that Owen Park was given to the city of Eau Claire by Cora’s grandfather, John S. Owen.
Evidently, Cora’s grandfather had a thing about trees. He was a lumber baron from Michigan who moved to this region; ran lumber mills; built a brick mansion on Porter Street; gave his son, Ralph, the middle name of Woodland; and, in his later years, set about establishing public parks and planting trees for public use in Eau Claire.
That’s literally “growing good” for you and me.
Cora was born in Madison in 1911 and moved to Eau Claire as a girl. This granddaughter of a lumber baron grew into Dr. Cora Rust. She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, treated the massive burns of victims from Boston’s deadly Cocoanut Grove night club fire in 1942 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire), and received her doctorate from the University of Minnesota in the areas of bacteriology, hematology and pathology.
Cora’s obituary is filled with terms like “efficacy of antibiotics,” “author and co-author of many papers” and, in 1966, “Montana’s ‘Scientific Woman of the Year’ ” as well as “The City of Eau Claire’s Outstanding Citizen from Eau Claire.”
Her surviving sister-in-law, Dorothy Owen, describes Cora as a wonderful woman.
In her retirement, Cora returned home to Eau Claire. Her Episcopalian priest, Father Kirby, who became briefly acquainted with her during her final illness, recalls that Cora was a “spunky woman – upbeat and delightful.” She died in 1999 at Syverson Lutheran Home, just down the street from the mansion her grandfather built.
Three very different women – Cleo Powers, Mildred Gerland and Cora Rust Owen – none of whom had children, but whose legacy of devotion and serving lives on.
Geothel wrote about preparing for book sales without Cleo: “Even when I’m working alone, I can’t shake the feeling that Cleo is there somewhere, back in the stacks, or in one of the other rooms we use for overflow. I can feel her didactic presence, hear her in my mind reiterating her system for discerning which books to toss, which to save, in order to ensure a quality sale.”
At the next election, I’ll miss Cleo at my polling place. But I know where I can continue to experience the generous, courageous spirit she continues to share with Mildred and Cora and anyone who visits a certain quiet alcove at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.