IOWA WORK ETHIC? TOP THIS!

Louise Lex, 95 years-old, retired this week from her job working for the citizens of Iowa at the Department of Public Health. For years, she drove from Ames to Des Moines every day. During the Pandemic she was allowed to work from home. Recently she’s been required to report to her office two days a week. “I’m not complaining,” said Louise. Since she no longer drives, she takes a DART bus to work.

Her first job, when she was a senior in high school in Manitowoc, Wisconsin was working at a Woolworth’s photo booth. Her second job was as “second maid” to a wealthy woman in Door County. That was 79 years ago! She was born in Lake City, Minnesota a month before the stock market crashed in 1929, just to put her life in perspective.

“Why are you still working, Louise?” I asked last week when her former colleague Deb Madison-Levi and I delivered Thai Flavors take-out to her home the day after her retirement party.

IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT EQUITY AND JUSTICE

“Because it gives me joy,” she answered quickly. And then there’s “equity and justice” she added.

According to a book her daughter Andrea wrote about her, it seems like it has always been about equity and justice for Louise. Even in first grade, she was the only one to vote for FDR in her class election. In a high school class called Problems of Democracy, she remembers a discussion about social security. To counter her classmates’ arguments about socialism, Louise quoted Abraham Lincoln, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot, so well, do for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”

Her job working for an aluminum company in Manitowoc, gave her an opportunity to earn enough to return to the University of Wisconsin her sophomore year. It also opened her eyes to what it was like to be “unskilled labor,” standing on her feet all day, only being allowed to use a bathroom at certain times. When she eventually taught social studies and political science, she told her students about wrapping 650 toy aluminum bowls every hour and getting paid 89 cents an hour.

In college she lived in a house that accommodated students who didn’t have a lot of money, but the women she met there became life-long friends. During her senior year, students across the nation protested the conviction of an African American man accused of raping a white woman. As president of the YWCA on campus, she and others visited the governor to ask him to write a letter requesting that Willie Magee’s sentence be commuted. When the governor declined, Louise surprised herself by speaking up. And she’s just kept speaking up.

“If I’d been born a few years later and things had changed somewhat for women, I might have become a lawyer,” she said.

SHE JUST KEEPS SPEAKING UP

When she was a child living in Fort Dodge, Iowa, she remembers inviting an African American friend to her birthday party. When he didn’t come, her mother explained that it would be deemed inappropriate by many in the community for an African American child to attend a white child’s party. The memory made her more determined to get her master’s degree in a field like political science that was dominated by young men.

To set the stage for everything that follows in her career, it’s important to know that her master’s thesis was titled, AFSCME&ME, about the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Her thesis allowed her to focus on labor economics and unions.

To understand the Louise of today, you must understand that she grew up during the Depression in a family with scarce resources. If she wanted to continue her education, work was a necessity. Also, inherent in her nature was a fighter’s sense of justice and an unusual outspokenness not always appreciated in young women at the time and even now at 95.

A HOME AND A FAMILY IN IOWA

Louise met Louie at the University of Wisconsin in 1950, and they married in 1954. Louie had served in WWII and the GI Bill gave him a chance to attend college and get a law degree. After they married, he chose to work as a municipal planner which took them to various cities in the east like Harrisburg, Scranton, and the DC area. During this time, they adopted two children, Andrea, who lives in California, and Louis who lives in Bondurant.

Louie’s decision to take a job teaching environmental law at Iowa State in 1972 brought them closer to both their Midwestern families, and they spent the rest of their married lives in Ames raising their children, traveling when possible, and volunteering in their community. Andrea’s book chronicles the generations that came before and the richness of their family’s life, including a fulfilling marriage that lasted 67 years until Louie’s death in 2017.

To get the details of Louise’s long, well-lived life, you’ll have to read Adrea’s book. I’m focused primarily on Louise’s work life. And it wasn’t the paycheck that inspired her to work into her mid 90’s, always choosing the side of the underdog, helping those just out of reach of power. Her work was sometimes paid, sometimes not, but she loved the work.

Soon after she arrived in Ames, she helped organize the Iowa Women’s Political Caucus for Story County. According to A Visionary’s Roadmap, IWPC was viewed as a model for other women’s groups around the country because it was bipartisan. “In Iowa, IWPC was instrumental in changing inheritance laws to be more equal for women. IWPC also worked to improve the state’s rape and sexual abuse laws and statutes. It was also influential in passing legislation to require balance on all state commissions.” They also worked hard to pass Title IX, which prohibited discrimination based on sex in public schools in academics and athletics.

Louise started teaching at Iowa State as an adjunct professor in the Political Science Department. In that role she developed a class called Women in Politics. Because there was no doctorate in political science at ISU, she went on to earn her PhD in Higher Education with an emphasis on political science.

In 1978 a job opened on the Commission on the Status of Women in Des Moines, and Louise took the job which involved grant writing to create more jobs for women in building and trades, but she also had to raise enough money to pay her own salary. As resources for the Commission declined, her job was eventually cut, but a new opportunity presented itself.

When Louise spoke to state workers during Women’s History month in 1984, she impressed Mary Ellis the director of the Iowa Department of Substance Abuse who offered her a job. Eventually this department merged with the Department of Public Health, which has been Louise’s professional home ever since.

Louise is proud of her work over the years, especially when she helped initiate “Healthy Iowans” a planning program that assessed health needs of each county and developed plans to meet those needs.

When she started working for the state, Louise joined AFSCME and in 2016 when they discovered the master’s thesis she’d written long ago, they featured her in their magazine, her picture on the cover. The headline read, “Never Quit: Louise Lex, 86, Just Wants to Help People.”

And that’s her secret. Louise loves her work, which is about helping people lead healthier, more productive lives.

When the pandemic closed office buildings, she moved her computer home. Now she reads professional journals and sends updated studies and data to her colleagues throughout the department to help keep them up to date on pertinent research.

Louise has always dressed up for work, says her friend Deb. Even now, working from home, she dresses professionally even on days she’s not going to the office. Today she’s wearing leopard-spotted dress pants. and colorful footwear. Louise admits a penchant for shoes. Her trademark high heels and a loud voice added authority to her 5 foot, 3-inch stature

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HEALTHCARE IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS

A bouquet of flowers sits on her lunch table. There are more in the kitchen surrounded by retirement cards. Family photos, art collected over the years, recognitions tucked under glass on the coffee table are evidence of a rich life, but what draws my attention is the small bulletin board in the kitchen filled with buttons, some political, some professional, collected over a lifetime of advocacy. My favorite: Public Health is Everybody’s Business

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“You, know it’s so fundamental, equity and justice. Healthcare is a right for everybody. And not to identify those folks who don’t have it and should have it is an injustice.” she says unsnapping her badge and handing it to Deb to be delivered to the Lucas Building.

Equity and justice have been Louise’s business for a lifetime. An Iowa Work Ethic? Top That!