Jim Pilmer was recalling his encounters with Fran Caffee from his days working at Aurora City Hall.
“It didn’t take long for me to recognize Fran as a person of great wisdom,” said Pilmer, now director of the Fox Valley Park District. “She knew what she was talking about. She didn’t call all that often, so if she did … I would just listen and provide the service she wanted.
“We had an alderman once who was arguing with her about a waterway through our city, and I thought, dude, you don’t know who you’re talking to.”
The alderman was talking to one of the top activists and experts on water quality in Aurora, the Fox Valley and beyond. Fran Caffee, a long-time Auroran, made it her life’s mission to crusade for clean air and water.
She started the local chapter of the Sierra Club in Kane County, known as the “Valley of the Fox” chapter, and a water quality committee within the club called the Water Sentinels.
In 2014, Caffee was recognized with the William E. Colby Award, the highest recognition given to someone within the Sierra Club. She died last year.
She was recognized earlier this year by the Fox Valley Park District Foundation and members of the Sierra Club with a tree planted on Arbor Day.
On Sunday, members of the Sierra Club, the Fox Valley Park District and its foundation, public officials and friends of Caffee gathered at Blackberry Farm to dedicate the tree with a plaque.
“She was one of these rare individuals you just connect with,” said Chuck Frank, until recently a national Sierra Club board member. “She just wanted to make sure the people who came after her had clean water and clean air.”
The Burr Oak tree was planted at one end of a picnic area next to the boathouse at Blackberry Farm — appropriately near the lake in the park. It also was planted appropriately near another Burr Oak planted in 2007 in honor of Tom Caffee, Fran’s husband. He was a long-time community activist and drove the small train at Blackberry Farm which runs near where the trees were planted.
“I think the word synonymous with both Tom and Fran was service,” said Deputy Mayor Chuck Nelson. “It’s fitting we have their trees within just a few feet of each other.”
National and local members of the Sierra Club donated the $500 to the Fox Valley Park Foundation to plant the tree as part of its Commemorative Trees and Park Bench memorials program. The foundation planted the tree and the Park District will take care of it.
Many of those people were on hand Sunday, including Mary Fran Twait, Fran Caffee’s daughter, who joked that most people now just refer to her as “Fran.”
She told the crowd that she credited her mother with “instilling in me the spirit of volunteerism.”
“She was an example of how one person can make a difference,” Twait said.
Also on hand was Linda Cole, the former long-time Park Board member for whom the Cole Center, the Park District’s Administrative Center, is named.
Cole and Caffee were not only good friends, they were often a tandem in approaching local officials on ecological issues.
“We all worked with Fran,” Cole said. “We all loved Fran.”
One of those officials the two women often approached was Nelson, who served as an aldermen for years. He praised the work of the two women, and said Fran Caffee “was about life.”
“Without clean water, without clean air, without protecting our natural resources, our life here is limited,” he said.
