Thoroughly disgusted and oblivious to potential damage to her pretty cotton dress and low-heeled pumps, Virginia R. Knuepfer is ripping handfuls of choking weeds out of her garden.
”Look at this!” she demands. ”Just last week I had this all cleared out.”
The offending weeds tossed unceremoniously on the carefully mowed lawn, the sparkling 69-year-old wife of a politician, mother of five, grandmother of nine continues the guided tour of her beautiful back-yard garden. The visitor, struck by the lush tangle of flowers, is enchanted. Knuepfer sees only faults.
”I`m fighting Russian aphids on the honeysuckle and some unknown invader in my apple trees,” she says, with the air of a field marshal who has just begun to fight.
For many people, the simple solution to such threats would be a quick trip to the local garden center for spray pesticide. But not for Knuepfer. As a member of the Elmhurst Garden Club and chair of the Garden Clubs of Illinois, Knuepfer is passionately involved in the movement toward
environmentally responsible gardening: No pesticides or herbicides allowed.
Is she an organic gardener? She has to think about that for a split second, because this quick-witted, joyous woman is not comfortable with labels. Any label.
”Yes, I guess you could call me an organic gardener,” she says. But then, quick as a flash, she`s on to her next concern, solid waste. ”We have to do something, something,” she states emphatically. ”Demand paper bags at the grocer store instead of plastic.”
Environmentalist. Fundraiser. Business woman. Volunteer. Political wife. Activist. Feminist. Christian. Pick any one of these descriptions and more, and you only begin to get a handle on what this woman is about. Her friends and associates sum it up in two short words. ”She cares,” said Midge Anderson, marketing coordinator of YWCA/Du Page, an organization that this year gave Knuepfer its Special Recognition Award for community service. ”She is just absolutely wonderful, dedicated and reliable. She is the kind of person every organization would love to have on their boards because she isn`t casual about making a commitment.”
”I just can`t tell you all the things she`s done,” said Marilyn Hume, whose friendship with Knuepfer through the Elmhurst Presbyterian Church goes back 35 years. ”She`s about the most loving person you could ever imagine. If you have a dilemma in your family, she doesn`t call; she just comes over with food, clothing, whatever.”
”She feels that she wants to make her dent in the world by helping other people,” said Mary Helen Zikmund, a Lombard resident who does volunteer work with Knuepfer. ”You never saw a woman express more love and concern. She is just so down to earth. She couldn`t care less about social functions. She just cares about people.”
So much so, in fact, that over a delicious fresh fish lunch at DiCola`s Seafood in Hinsdale, Knuepfer takes a genuine interest in a reporter`s search for a new home. She suggests several locations where land and tall trees are both plentiful and afforable, then stops short and winks:
”Of course you could live in Kane County, but you should live in Du Page.”
Okay, here it comes: the wife of Jack Knuepfer, chairman of the Du Page County Board for the last nine years, spouting the party line. Or is it?
”We`ve lived in Elmhurst since 1950,” she says. ”When we built a new home in 1959, it was in Elmhurst, and 75 percent of the people on our block who were also building new homes were also from Elmhurst.”
Why Elmhurst?
”Because,” says Knuepfer, hazel eyes flashing, ”there is no social climbing. People accept you as you are.”
She seems curiously untouched by the large part of her life, 19 years in the political spotlight.
Her husband tried to explain: ”Whether I was in politics or not, she would be involved. I don`t pick her charities; she does. And a lot of them are low-key, not at all high profile. For her, it`s getting down in the basement and sewing.”
Which is exactly what happens when Knuepfer and her merry bank of volunteers get together for a modern-day version of the quilting bee. With a seven-year-old nonprofit project called Crowning Glory, the volunteers fashion special scarves, bonnets and wig-liners for women who have lost their hair while undergoing chemotherapy.
”It was Virginia`s idea,” said Zikmund. ”She had a dear friend who died of cancer, and Virginia said that if she did something for other cancer victims, then her friend`s death would stand for something.”
Sitting in the Hinsdale eatery, which by now is packed with the noon-hour rush, Knuepfer gives a personal demonstration of the creative headcoverings. Whipping a bonnet out of her bag, she covers her own Lauren Bacall-like hair and points to the small fringe of wig hair fashioned onto the front of the bonnet.
”It`s the hair that makes the difference,” she says, relating the story of one grateful patient who, in tears, told Knuepfer that she could now go to the supermarket ”and not look like my hair was in rollers.”
”Virginia did all the legwork,” said Zikmund. ”She contacted all the local hospitals to let them know what we were doing. Over the years, we`ve made several thousand.”
As the demonstration continues, with explanations about the importance of adjustability and all-cotton fabric, the listener is struck by Knuepfer`s apparent lack of vanity. After all, her hair is getting considerably mussed up in the middle of a crowded, public place.
”She did the same thing with me,” said the YWCA`s Anderson. ”She came in one day to one of our luncheon meetings, looking absolutely great, and tried on her headcovering with a complete lack of self-consciousness. But that`s Virginia Knuepfer. She always comes early to help prepare centerpieces. She`ll wear her grubbies, bring a change of clothing, and go to work.”
To cynics who suggest that Knuepfer is only doing what she needs to do as the wife of a powerful politician who wants to stay in office, her friends offer a staunch, blunt defense.
”They don`t know what they`re talking about,” said Hume. ”She is so genuine. And she and Jack are separate entities. Jack might come home and find a note on the refrigerator that says, `So and so needs help. See you later.`
”
”She`s a perfect complement to her husband,” said Anderson. ”I don`t know anybody, political or non-political, who doesn`t like her.”
Knuepfer herself is well aware of the cynicism. ”I try to keep my name off of organizational literature for that reason,” she says. ”I know people would see it and say, `Oh, of course. He`s running.` ”
The visitor suggests that, despite the relative lack of public recognition, Knuepfer`s family must be proud of her. Horrified, Knuepfer replies, ”You don`t do this for pride. You do things because they need to be done.”
Having finished the fish, Knuepfer wants to introduce her visitor to another of Knuepfer`s long-term projects, the Anna Emery Hanson Center in Burr Ridge. The center is a relatively new facility offering full- and part-time services to people with disabilities. As a board member of the Illinois Foundation for the Handicapped, she speaks with passion of the center as a place whose time is long overdue.
”We had to convince a lot of people that the Hanson Center belonged here,” she says, surveying the expensive homes surrounding the property. ”We used to hide these people, warehouse them. But people are not meant to live in warehouses.”
Why does she feel so strongly about helping the disabled?
”Because my children are whole. I have to give back.”
Giving back, in this case, meant being instrumental in the development of the center`s extensive grounds for use as a tool in physical therapy and rehabilitation. With her enthusiasm full-throttle, Knuepfer persuaded one person to contribute money for an outdoor, one-mile, wheelchair-accessible running-walking track with fitness stations.
She persuaded others to plant flowers and bushes and to begin creating what she calls family gardens so that families of the disabled can join them in an outdoor activity. It is a dream as yet unfulfilled, and Knuepfer, eyeing two browning evergreen bushes, allows herself to be a bit impatient. As she stoops to inspect her own handiwork in the flower beds and checks up on the resident horses, goats and chickens, you realize that this is a woman concerned both with the smallest of details and the big picture.
”I want this place to really go,” she says.
As Kneupfer heads back to her car, a well-used Caprice Classic with 87,000 miles, the visitor asks her when she finds time, in the midst of all her commitments, for leisurely lunches and shopping. She makes a face, at once implying that surely a person could find more important things to do with his or her time.
”I don`t like shopping at all,” she says, ”unless it`s a terrific bargain. Jack wants me to buy a new car, but I just don`t want to shop for it.”
Jack understands. Married 41 years, the two have achieved an intricate balancing act of hard work and close family ties.
”We met back in high school,” says Jack. ”We were in the class of 1938 at Oak Park High School.”
Is that where they fell in love?
”Oh, I don`t know,” he says, uncomfortable with a question he apparently isn`t asked often. ”How do you explain something like that? There must have been some sort of chemistry.”
The kind of chemistry that still leads them, some four decades later, to escape to their favorite weekend getaway, the Indiana Dunes, for some time alone.
”We go for long walks,” says Virginia, ”and I try to keep up with him.”
The couple loves traveling together, making yearly trips to Salt Lake City for extended family ski vacations. Virginia, never one to be left behind, learned to ski at age 45. Last year, they went to Greece, China and Australia. Next month, they`ll be heading for Europe.
”We just get in a car and go,” says Jack. ”We drive until we feel like stopping.”
Do they ever run into anyone from Du Page County?
”Sadly, yes,” says Virginia, laughing. ”It`s a very small world. But it`s been a good lesson for my children: Be careful. Someone will know you wherever you are.”
And, sometimes, know you very well. Over the years, the Knuepfers have opened their home to 22 foreign students, some of whom they now visit on trips abroad.
”I now have `grandchildren` all over the world,” says Virginia, smiling.
Back in her garden, Knuepfer is worrying over her decidedly unripe tomatoes.
”They`ll probably ripen while we`re away,” she says. Which would be a big disappointment to her husband, because she makes a mean pot of homemade vegetable soup.
”She`s a gourmet cook,” says Jack.
”I used to be a gourmet cook,” says Virginia. ”But I quit. I burned out. I don`t want to cook anymore.”
”That`s fine with me,” says Jack. ”I eat out so much that I`d just as soon come home to a sandwich. But I still try to talk her into making my favorite: baked beans.”
Truth be told, he has a better chance of getting green beans.
”I planted this beanstalk for my grandson,” says Virginia, ”to show him that Jack in the Beanstalk is real. You see,” she says, eyes twinkling, as she points to a plant sturdily climbing the backyard fence. ”This beanstalk goes all the way up to the sky.”
Once again, looking at this woman, you search for a label. And when you find it, it comes as a bit of a surprise. Because no matter what her label, you`re forced to add one more. She has a touch of magic.
