Luncheon Tributes ~ April 6, 2013

Memorial Services for Lynne M. Cooper

Interfaith Memorial Celebration of the Life of Lynne M. Cooper

Second Presbyterian Church

5 April 2013

Lynne M. Cooper
April 6,1951 - March 16, 2013
Holy Family Chapel
Carondelet
6 April 2013

Prelude: Psalm 84 from the Brahms Requiem
Welcome: Sr. Maureen Freeman, CSJ
Entrance Procession:

• Circle Doorways: Opal Jones, Brenda Armour. Gulu: Patricia Murphy, CSJ. Family: Clark Cooper. Community: Cec Beresford, CSJ. LGBT Community: Rosemary Denson. Friends: Sean Muthian. Caregivers: Jo Ann Geary, CSJ and Donn Kleinschmidt

First Reading: Proverbs 9:1,31:20,25-26 - Susan Kohl
Responsorial: Psalm 146
Gospel Acclamation: Allelluia, alleluia!
Homily: Rev. Dr. Scott Stearman
Intercessions:

• Kathleen Murphy, Diane Levine, Mary Louise Basler, CSJ, Marie Martir, James McCoy, Alex Tishler

Presentation of Gifts: Make Me An Instrument

Dressing of the Alter: Rose Jonas, Anne Bader

Candle Bearers: Mary Sue Rosenthal, Alison Gee

Gift Bearers: Paula Watson, Iris McCoy, Clark Cooper

Communion Hymns: On Eagle's Wings, Taste and See, Sancte Joseph

Eucharistic Ministers:

• Maureen Freeman, CSJ, Becky Holly, CSJ, Judy Buchanan, Maryellen Tierney, CSJ, Marie Damien Adams, CSJ, Ken Nuerenburger, Pat Giljum, CSJ

Recessional Hymn: Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Music Ministers

Brahms Psalm 84: Friends of Lynne and Members of the Symphony Chorus

Conductor: Leon Burke

Accompanist: Mark Spurrier

Chorus: Rudi Bertrand, Marella Briones, Dan Brodsky, Buff Buffkin, Mary Donald, Susan Hagen, Tim Havis, Heather Humphrey, Tim Jansen, Karl Koesterer, Sharon Lightfoot, Jan Marra, Claire Minnis, Brian Pezza, Donna Westerphelt, Paul Williams

Piano: Peter Fisher Hesed

Bass: Peter Herbig

Drums: Eva Barringhaus

Trumpet: Jay Harkey

Saxophone: Mike Karpowicz

Vocalists: Linsey Boczek, Peter Meredith, Steve Neale

Liturgist: Mary Kay Christian

From The Vital Voice

Lynne Cooper was recognized as a Woman of Worth by the Older Women's League and was honored with the Administrator's Citation from the Health Care Financing Administration, the Founder's Award from her Alma Mater, Fontbonne University; the Initiative Award from Africans United Against AIDS Globally, the Sandra T. Spiritas Red Ribbon Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIDS Foundation of St. Louis, the Distinguished Fair Housing Service Award from the St. Louis Civil Rights Enforcement Agency and the 2012 Individual Equality Award from HRC St. Louis.

Lynne M.Cooper D.Min. Obituary

Lynne M. Cooper, D.Min., passed away peacefully at her home on Sat., Mar. 16, 2013 at the age of 61 after a long but brave battle with pancreatic cancer. Lynne was one of the founders of DOORWAYS, an Interfaith, HIV/AIDS homeless ministry and served as its long-time President and most recently President Emeritus. She was preceded in death by her parents William Sr., and Olga Cooper, and brothers William Cooper, Jr. and Ralph Cooper. Lynne is survived by her siblings, Iris (Cooper) McCoy, Paula (Cooper) Watson and Clark Cooper and a host of nieces and nephews. Lynne was born in Greenville, SC on April 6, 1951 and spent her early childhood with her family in the Jacksonville, FL area. Her family then moved to Atlanta, GA where she graduated from St. Joseph's High school. Lynne's undergraduate degree was from Fontbonne University. She held a Master's degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Eden Seminary. Lynne's interest in HIV/AIDS began during her pastoral care residency at Southern Baptist Hospital in New Orleans in 1985. In 1988, she and other community and faith leaders founded DOORWAYS, an Interfaith AIDS Residence Program to address the housing needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. Lynne served on numerous state and national boards, including President Clinton's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, the National AIDS Housing Coalition and the Missouri Children's Trust Fund. She volunteered her time and talent at The Women's Safe House and assisted in the startup of The Community Wellness Project. Lynne's humanitarian work reached many corners of the U.S. and several countries in Africa. In recent years, Lynne spearheaded the development of a birthing center in Gulu, Uganda. This dream of beginning construction and assisting expectant mothers is now nearly a reality, thanks to her vision and dedication.

Services: An Interfaith Memorial Service, Friday, April 5, at 7 p.m. at Second Presbyterian Church, 4501 Westminster Pl., St. Louis, 63108. A Catholic Mass for Family, Close Friends and Sisters, Saturday, April 6, at 11 a.m. at Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 6400 Minnesota Ave, St. Louis, 63111. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to DOORWAYS for the Lynne Cooper Initiative for At-Risk Youth, 4385 Maryland Ave., St. Louis, MO 63108 or for the birthing center in Gulu, Uganda in c/o The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 6400 Minnesota Ave, St. Louis, MO 63111 Attn: Development Department/ Gulu Birthing Center.

Lynne died peacefully at 8:10pm this evening

After a life-long commitment to social justice and a heroic, 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer, Lynne passed on this evening.  She was comfortable and at home in her bed with Sister Jo at her side.  We will post details about her memorial soon.

Whee!

My doctor, Andrea Wang Gillam, told Donn, JoAnn and me today that the medicines I am on have reduced the number and sizes of the tumors in my liver, pancreas and abdomen. She also took me off of some of the more irritating oral meds. It made us all feel more comfortable about JoAnn going back to Africa soon to continue her work and kick start the construction of the Maternity Clinic. In the meantime it's a big hurrah and a promise of more time to spend my nieces and nephews' inheritance!

Walleye pike

We didn't catch it but we hope to eat one just like it.

Spending time with Arch & Deb in Michigan

There will be no boating this year, but we might get in a little ice fishing!

The front of the house

Our front yard and frozen lake

Front porch and lake from inside house.

Finalizing maternity ward plans

Jo with Frank and Pat Hasse finalizing maternity ward plans

Love Conquers All and Dog Whisperer

Today was a chemo day, and everything went smoothly. Because some of my counts were down, they reduced the amount of the chemo drug which has that negative effect. I have also begun a new chemo I take in a daily pill, called Tarceva. I am getting some of the side effects like a rash on my face, mild nausea, mild headaches, and so on. The doctor says these are good signs that the drug is taking effect, and I am hoping the diarrhea symptom kicks in, at least for a little while, because I am having the opposite problem.

Because this is not a very entertaining update, we have included a little picture story about JoAnn and Alison and Mary Sue's dog, Roxie. If you know Jo well, you know that she has a feeling toward most dogs, especially big dogs, somewhere between fear and dislike, until she gets to know them. Roxie outweighs JoAnn significantly, so it is a great accomplishment that they have made such good friends.   ~  Lynne

Flying to Atlanta

Jeffrey Fort's plane taking Lynne and friends to Atlanta.

Tidy Drawers!

Nice folding job! Jo

This is what happens when Jo lives with you! My drawers do not know what to think about being so tidy. I am feeling well except for some swelling in the face and neck. I have chemo tomorrow, Thursday, and I will see the doctor on this visit. Most important, I am scheduled to fly to Atlanta for a family Christmas party on the 29th. Please keep fingers crossed that I am able to go. We are traveling in a friend's jet, and it should be a ton of fun!

Lynne

Home from the hospital

We are home from the hospital with some new medicine for the blood clots and continuing the current chemotherapy. Both are palliative and may slow the progress of the tumors and clots. I feel good, and the pain med is doing its job. Here is a photo of the manager scene Cec brought back from Peru years ago. Jo found it and put it up for us. Also is a memorial from when Carly was chosen to be the Christ child in the Christmas pageant.

Getting a Little General Maintenance

Feelin' Better!

Shawn Tucker came over to work on my neck and 

head on Sunday! Feellin' better!

Lynne Cooper holds uncommon vision of housing as health care

Thanks to Scott Stearman, PhD, a baptist minister on Doorway's board. Special love to Episcopal Dean Michael Allen, Chuck Gulas, Dean at Maryville, and Dennis Hoffert, JD, the three of whom were the original founding force of Doorways.

In Commentary

By Scott L. Stearman, special to the Beacon

12:05 am on Wed, 10.10.12

The Bible's wisdom literature warns that people perish where there is no vision (Proverbs 29:18). Vision, it is implied, is a gift given to a few so that the many might prosper. It is a rare and beautiful gift, this vision that leads people to life.

It is rare, but in every generation there are those who find it, or maybe those who are found by it when circumstances insist. In either case we in St. Louis have been fortunate to live in the same city as a visionary named Lynne Cooper.

Cooper, who very recently retired as president of Doorways Interfaith HIV housing, found the foresight, compassion, energy and pure gumption to save thousands from homelessness and certain death. In the process, Cooper protected countless others who would have been affected and potentially infected by those with HIV. Without a home, those infected with HIV are not only much more likely to get sick and die, but they are many times less likely to take medication. In the case of HIV, this means you are more likely to infect those with whom you may share needles or have sex.

Today, Doorways provides housing and care for 1,000 households affected with HIV/AIDS each year, has an annual operating budget of $5 million, and has brought more $100 million of competitive housing dollars to Missouri. Just 25 years ago Doorways didn’t exist. The difference between then and now can predominately be traced to Lynne Cooper.

In the late 1980s many young men were dying well before their time. HIV, then just beginning to be understood, was taking lives, decimating families and engendering fear along a large swath of the U.S. population. St. Louis was hardly immune. Some in the local community were talking in terms of sin and retribution. Others heard a call of compassion to help the sick and the dying, while the vast majority were simply ignoring the issue.

Cooper, a nun, began to meet with a few concerned clergy and community leaders. In those early meetings, there were representatives from the Catholic Archdiocese, a local rabbi, and ministers from Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and United Church of Christ traditions.

As the group began to discuss the outstanding need of people infected with  HIV, they came to recognize that stable and secure housing was essential. This early vision, that safe housing is a prerequisite for effective treatment of HIV, has since been born out through research. For those who are HIV positive, housing is health care.

In 1988, this group founded Doorways, an Interfaith AIDS Residence Program. They did so with four apartments. This small initiative of clergy and community leaders knew they needed dynamic leadership. In 1989 they asked Lynne to be the executive director. The board would change her title to president in 1996 and upon her retirement the board has made her, "president emeritus." But titles can never communicate all that her visionary commitment has meant to this organization or to the local community.

Today Doorways offers rent, mortgage and utility assistance to more than 700 households each month and apartments for 280 people, including 80 children. It provides residential care for 36 people too ill to live independently in Missouri's first residential care facility for those with AIDS. Its mission also includes programs for AIDS housing in outstate Missouri and Illinois and a "Jumpstart" for 20 single parents living with AIDS who receive help with rent, utilities, education, transportation, food and childcare.

Cooper retired from Doorways at the end of September. Tom and Carol Voss, supporters of the organization, hosted a party in honor of her career at the Ameren headquarters. Moving speeches were given by clients and staff. One of the most poignant moments of the evening was Evelyn Cohen’s description of those early derelict apartments, where Lynne was not only the administrator but the plumber.

As a local clergy person, I have known of Doorways for about four years and have been on the board for about a year and a half. In full disclosure I now consider Lynne Cooper a personal friend. But I expect that is true of the vast majority of people who have met her; she emanates a charisma that draws you in, a compassion you can’t help but take personally.

I saw this in great effect when at my first board meeting we spent a couple of hours poring over byzantine budget sheets and financial reports. It was all very dry. All the economic challenges of our day were there in spades.

As we came to the end of the afternoon, a couple of the most darling little girls you've ever seen, about 5 years old, both with pig tails and summer dresses, came up to the glass door of the conference. They smiled and waved. I waved back.

They weren't as interested in me as the cookies on the table in front of me. Lynne Cooper saw this and immediately took the platter out to them — to their evident appreciation, displayed in toothy grins. They lived in the housing complex. Their parents, poor and sick, where being housed, and these young lives were being saved, because of those facts, figures and budget sheets.

Cooper has been that rare leader who could drop everything at a moment’s notice for the all-important task of delivering a cookie, and who at the same time can get her head around unfathomable HUD residential requests and arcane governmental budget requirements.

That capacity of embracing the personal and corporate has made her a very effective manager. Obviously she didn’t build the organization by herself. She has been known has a very effective mentor to young leaders — some of whom now run other human service agencies.

Opal Jones is one such mentee, hired by Lynne several years ago. She told me that Cooper gave her the grace to make mistakes, but if something didn’t work out as expected; she expected that you would take responsibility.

“Cultivating leadership within the organization,” Opal said, “was very important to her.” In conversations with multiple Doorways staff, past and present, it seems Cooper imbibed the powerful advice of Pope Gregory on pastoral care: Like the Good Samaritan apply both wine (which stings and cleans) and oil (which comforts and soothes) to the wounds of those for whom you are caring.

Cooper’s leadership hasn’t gone without notice. She served on President Clinton’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and has received numerous positive citations and awards. The most recent came on the evening of Sept. 22 when Cooper was awarded the “Individual Equality Award” by the Human Rights Campaign.

In her acceptance speech, Cooper referenced the Erik Erikson theory of development: Mature adults reach a stage of either “generativity or stagnation.” The former is marked by finding lasting meaning and purpose often by investing in the next generation.  It is Cooper’s contention that the LGBTQ movement has progressed to generativity. The idea is that the local community has created numerous programs and institutions that help engender health and happiness. These programs are staffed by the energy and dedication of many people in the gay community even though AIDS is no longer a “gay disease.”

Here is part of what Cooper said: “Having reached this adult stage of generativity, our movement has gotten over its narrow selves. We are now proudly Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgendered. Our tent is big; it is inclusive.

St. Louis Effort for AIDS is no longer the gay organization, it is the education organization. Food Outreach takes care of people with HIV and cancer regardless of their orientation. Doorways is pondering how housing can prevent HIV among all varieties of homeless young people. These agencies are no longer segments of a gay movement, they are leaders and teachers about how to deal with any disease, how to address poverty itself, and what every human being deserves in food, housing and knowledge to life a full life. We are no longer just taking care of ourselves. In our maturity as a movement, we are leading the way in this world to a better more empathetic humanity.”

I think she is right about this. If so, she is largely to blame.