"Please excuse my typing this letter. As your mother knew all too well, my script is barely readable. I wanted to make sure that you all know how so many of us felt about your mother.
"Eloise did not always like me, for good reason. But I always knew that she loved me and all the others at the University who tormented her so. She was a firm believer in the verse, “And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. I believe she liked the old one better because she knew in her heart that charity is love and much more, including loving an irascible carpetbagger who came in and tried to run her School of Social Work.
"Eloise was one of the best social workers I have ever known. She did not have to be taught about “accepting people as they are,” or “starting where the client is.” These beliefs were a solid part of her Kentucky upbringing. These values were in her soul. She did have problems with me and others who did not act on these principles. She regularly told me that she could not understand a faculty of Social Workers who did not act like Social Workers. She never did comprehend the politics and foolishness of faculty business. It always puzzled her that we could not just concentrate on learning and be decent to each other in the process.
"Eloise, as they say, talked the talk and walked the walk. She was earth mother to every hapless, lost student who came within a mile of her. If there was a way to work out their problems, Eloise would find it. She did all kinds of things for faculty. A small one sticks in my memory. Using her own money, she bought stamps to have on hand for faculty personal mail. This was not part of her job, she just did it. She did try to collect for the stamps but she was always willing to carry a tab for those of us who just could not maintain our own satisfactory cash on hand.
"About Golf. She loved it. She loved Herb Richek as her partner. As a pair, the two of them were unforgettable. Such a study in contrasts, the Rankian from New York and the fundamentalist from Kentucky. Together they made up a congregation of the faithful. Eloise loved to paint little faces on the balls and name them. I am sure Herb encouraged her and then lived in terror that the Dean or I would find out. I know that I regularly made it down the OU fairway in the wake of her cry of “Fore!” She showed me a ball with my face on it once. I thought it a rather good likeness, sort of round and pudgy, like Charlie Brown.
"I hope there is some comfort in knowing how much so many of us loved your mother. She was an Oklahoma Institution, a major feature of the University, but she was above all else a great, warm, loving person." F.J. Peirce, August 2000.
Only God knows how many people Mother touched in her capacity as Den Mother to the School of Social Work. I know students from other Schools would come to her for help when all other avenues had been exhausted. She was tireless in her efforts to help anyone get through the maze of OU. Including me.