Sowing the Seeds of
Remembrance
By Melinda Rogers, Star
Tribune Staff Writer
(2003
Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul)
The first
Mary
McEvoy Day of Service was observed by friends and
relatives of Paul Wellstone's campaign manager, who died with him
six months ago in a plane crash. Gardens at the University of
Minnesota and a DFL event will also honor her.
They had hoped that the daffodils
they planted six months ago outside Pattee Hall at the University
of Minnesota would be in full bloom by Friday, when they gathered
to remember a friend who had spent years inside, researching
childhood special education.
But the lack of color didn’t stop the friends and family of
Mary McEvoy from marking the six-month anniversary of her death
in a plane crash—which also killed U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone
and six others—with a celebration of her life, spending the
day volunteering.
Participants in the first Mary McEvoy Day of Service delivered
books, blankets and toiletries collected from a two-week charity
drive to St. Anne’s Place, an emergency housing shelter for
women and children in Minneapolis.
They also planted a second memorial garden for McEvoy, a
Wellstone campaign staffer, at the University Child Care Center,
where she often read picture books to children and taught them
the song “Miss Mary Mack.”
“She loved hunkering down with the kids, playing and goofing
around with them,” said Teri Estrem, a research associate at
the university’s Center for Early Education and Development.
Estrem said children at the Child Care Center will help make
stepping stones—inscribed with the rhymes from the song
McEvoy loved to sing—to complete the garden.
McEvoy will also be honored tonight—along with the
Wellstones and former Gov. Orville Freeman, who died in February—at
the DFL’s Humphrey Day Dinner as great DFLers lost recently.
It won’t be the first honor bestowed on the former associate
chair of the DFL party. Recently, McEvoy was awarded the Friends
of the Children award from the National Association of School
Psychologists—the first person to receive the award
posthumously.
At the memorial service, McEvoy’s relatives said they have
been touched by the impact her life continues to make.
“It’s nice that we’re together today; six months
ago, Mary was still here,” said McEvoy’s husband, Jamie
Cloyd, at the memorial service. It was also attended by their
children Clare, 16; Becca, 15, and Luke, 12.
“Mary would be laughing at so much attention—the
function of Mary’s behavior was attention,” he said.
Melinda Rogers is at mrogers@startribune.com
(2003
Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul)