Laverne Friedman Ehlmann was a perfect example of one person making a big difference in a community, her friends and family say.
Mrs. Freidman Ehlmann, a longtime elementary teacher in the Fox C-6 School District, worked tirelessly to help get a ballot measure passed that created the Fox-Windsor Library District in 1989.
“We have a library system in our county that is second to none, and it’s all because of people like Laverne,” said District 113 State Rep. Phil Amato (R-Arnold), who also helped with the effort. “The work she did will affect generations to come.”
Mrs. Friedman Ehlmann died May 28 at age 86 after battling dementia.
“She lived a life of public service,” said her son, Steve Friedman, 55, of Columbia. “She was a good example for not just us but the people she served.”
Laverne Allersmeyer grew up in a farm family in New Haven. She attended Southeast Missouri State College and began teaching at Antonia Elementary School.
Sherman Friedman was a local farmer who also drove the school bus at Antonia.
“They always said they met at the water fountain,” said daughter Vickie Dohack, 62, of Barnhart. They were married in 1960.
Mrs. Friedman was known as a hands-on sort of teacher who had a talent for motivating young readers.
“It was important to her to give them those reading fundamentals to help them through life,” Steve said.
At home, she was equally hands-on.
“She taught me how to cook, and she encouraged us to read,” Vickie said. “Sundays were for family; we’d go to church and then see our grandparents for dinner. We had our own garden, and she always did canning. We’d do day trips, like to Elephant Rocks or something, but farmers just don’t take time off.”
“Coming from agriculture and teaching – two of the hardest-working professions you can have – our parents taught us that work ethic,” Steve said. “But they were fun, too – we had a lot of good times together. We tried to enjoy everything, no matter whether it was work or play.”
The Friedmans went to the library as a family as well.
“We’d have to drive up to South County to the library,” Steve said. “We made an event out of it, but you had to pay to go, and it was a pain in the butt to have to drive up there every two weeks.
“Arnold is a lot different now; you can get just about any service you need here, but back then it was very different. There was this big hole in the county that just wasn’t being served.”
Amato, who served more than 30 years on the county library board, said it was tough going, but a library district finally made it onto the ballot in November 1989.
“Laverne and another committee member met with teachers in every school building across the Fox district,” Amato said. “The theme was ‘All aboard the Reading Railroad!’ and they had these little posters with the black train symbol from the Monopoly game. They made every kid a boxcar, and the kids colored them and they were hung behind the locomotive logo winding all the way through the halls. Parents came to open house and the kids were excited to tell them about the library.”
Getting the students involved paid off at the polls.
“That was the only thing on the ballot that fall,” Amato said. “I saw moms and dads coming to vote, and elementary kids went right in with them, all excited. It was like they were voting as a family. It was the most touching thing I’d seen in my years of working in community service.”
A few years after the death of her husband in 1993, Mrs. Friedman got remarried, to Arlie Ehlmann, a fellow choir member at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Otto.
“His wife had passed away a year or so after Dad,” Vickie said. “They were putting away tables and chairs after a church event, and Arlie asked Mom if she wanted to come with him to lunch because he didn’t like to eat alone. That’s how they started dating.”
The couple, both retired, joined a St. Charles-based choir that performed in venues around the area.
“They did a lot of Elderhostel trips,” Vickie said. “It was a learning experience, and they really enjoyed that.”
Mrs. Ehlmann was an avid reader until the end.
“She liked a good mystery, liked fiction. But she had a wide range of stuff she liked,” Vickie said. “If she found a good book, she’d share it with me. If you brought her a bottle of shampoo, she’d read the bottle.”
In August 2023, Mrs. Ehlmann had a fall and was taken to the hospital.
“From that point, she started going downhill cognitively,” Vickie said. “She was at The Woodlands for rehab, and then as things started to progress with her memory, we knew she wouldn’t be able to go home, so we moved her to a memory care unit.
“We were getting ready to go see her when we got the call.”
Her children say Mrs. Friedman Ehlmann would be proud of her legacy.
“We get so focused on people building businesses,” Steve said. “But she helped build something for the public, for the greater good.
“She was a testament that people don’t have to be high-powered millionaires to make an impact on the world.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.