[Vision2020] A Legacy Returns to Rest

[Moscow Cares]

Courtesy of today's (November 17, 2012) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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A legacy returns to rest
Janet Fiske remembered for community, political involvement in Moscow
 

 
Janet Fiske lived all around the world, but made Moscow her home more than 40 years ago, and cared for it much of her life. In death, she will return here for her final rest.
Fiske died Tuesday at Vashon Community Care in Washington surrounded by family, just shy of her 100th birthday this week. Her remains will be brought back to Moscow this spring to join her husband, John's, her son Fred said.
"She loved Moscow a lot. Her adopted home, I'd say, yes, indeed," he said. "A couple of people have said, 'Well, you've got to do it in the 1912 Center.' ... Another friend said that half the town misses her, so maybe half the town will show up."
Fiske donated $50,000 toward the west wing expansion of the 1912 Center, which opened in 2008 with a room dedicated to her and her husband. Center director Jenny Kostroff remembered there were some concessions involved, since Fiske had wryly asked - at 95 - for renovations to herself.
"I said I couldn't do a renovation on her, but I could do a renovation on the building to support people for the next 100 years. She said that was good," Kostroff said. "She showed the room while it was being built to her kids and said, 'Here's your inheritance.' "
Another promise she made Kostroff keep was to make sure there was always room for the Moscow League of Women Voters, a group she joined when she first came to the city in 1970. It was the same year Paradise Creek flooded over, becoming one of many causes Fiske took on throughout the years.
"She was very active in cleaning up the creek and flood control, and that was one of the league's local studies was paradise creek," said Joan Klingler, membership chair for LWV. "... She just really welcomed people. She was kind of our unofficial greeter for new members of the League of Women Voters."
She was even recognized by the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council for the league fundraiser she created packing and selling the legumes, Klingler said. She would add to them pressed flowers she picked up along her many walks around the city, Fred said.
"She called them Palouse book marks," he said. "... Largely through her efforts, the city has really embraced Paradise Creek now."
A staunch Democrat and advocate for the political process, Fiske was able to vote in one more presidential election this year through an absentee ballot in Washington before her death, Fred said.
She became a president of sorts too, recently. Klingler said she drafted an honorary past president certificate for Fiske to go with one from the national league in honor of her upcoming birthday. Of all her roles in LWV, Fred said she regretted never being president.
"We got it to her just before she started to fail," he said, adding it was nice to close that chapter of her life with the honor. "... One of the things she said she most admired was leaders and having the courage to take up the mantle of leadership."
Longtime friend Mary Jo Hamilton remembers Fiske was always trying to get her to join LWV with her, along with the Paradise Path Task Force and the Moscow Recycling Board.
"The league was very important to her, but it was all very important to her," Hamilton said. "Janet was always very direct. She always said exactly what she thought in any occasion. ... She was interested in everything. She read voluminously and actually did quite a bit of writing."
In 2006, Mayor Nancy Chaney declared April 22 Janet Fiske Appreciation Day in honor of her community involvement and philanthropic endeavours.
"She was a reserved person. She had a terrific wit," Chaney said. "For me, it was an honor when she kind of opened up to me and she wanted to know me, for example, before supporting one of my campaigns, and I really respected that about her. Once she embraced you as a friend, you were a friend for keeps. I respected her for her integrity, she was a person who didn't put on airs."
Those who knew her spoke of Fiske's dry wit, her love of hosting and attending parties, socializing with everyone and her resilience, which she passed on to her husband, John, even when he was in poor health.
"She wouldn't let him sit down in a chair and become an old man," Hamilton said. "... The world is not as elegant a place without John and Janet. You have to put the two together, it's always been John and Janet."

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Janet Fiske before the Moscow City Council on April 17, 2006 discussing rivers in cities and Paradise Creek . . .

http://www.moscowcares.com/In_Memory/JanetFiske_041706.mp3
 


Rest well, Ms. Fiske.
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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