Vida Loafman Driscoll

Vida Loafman Driscoll, beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and friend, died in Viroqua on Saturday, June 22, 2013. She was 98 years old and remained active, independent and alert up until the last few days of her life. Born on Jan. 20, 1915, to Martin and Elfrieda Freeman Loafman at Reading, near Worthington, Nobles County, Minn., she was the third of four siblings: Milo, Cleo and younger brother Russell. The family lived for a time in Wheatland, N.D., before moving to Sheldon, Iowa, where “Vi” graduated high school in 1932, and soon after worked for the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company as a "number please" operator, when one-, two- and three-digit phone numbers connected people and informed of emergency situations. Vi, herself, proved a crucial lifeline for several callers in dire emergency situations.

In 1939, Vi married her high school sweetheart Paul H. Driscoll. He was a beloved and respected high school coach and teacher in Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota, and was later mayor of Clarkfield, Minn. They shared 61 years of happy life together until Paul passed away in Viroqua in 2001. Together they raised three sons, Robert Bob Russell, Charles Chuck Loyd and John Paul. Also included in Vi and Paul's immediate family is niece, Gladys Noack Duckson.

Vi was a loving wife, caring mother, glittering friend, intrepid entrepreneur, consummate political activist and ardent football fan. She owned and operated dry cleaning establishments in Marshall and Clarkfield, ran the popular Vi’s Café in Clarkfield, and founded Vi’s Uniform Shop in Brainerd, Minn. With her usual high energy and abundant good cheer, she redefined the uniform business with fashion merchandising, store décor and high level customer service. She set new industry standards and was recognized as a trendsetter by uniform manufacturers throughout the country.

As chair of the Clarkfield Housing Authority, Vi successfully fought to obtain the necessary funding and city and federal support that resulted in the construction of Valhalla, a Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD apartment complex, which provided homes for low-income seniors, and was dedicated Sept. 19, 1971. Vice President Walter Mondale spoke of Vi as “a futuristic thinker and one of the early activists to recognize the need for low-cost housing for the elderly in the rural areas of America.”

Vi was an avid fan of high school and professional sports. She thoroughly understood the game of football and was a longtime Minnesota Vikings fan, and in recent years, after moving to Wisconsin, was also a devoted Green Bay Packers supporter. Vi organized “Packer Parties” among the residents of Park View Plaza and wore her favorite sequined Packers jersey every Saturday during the football season. She founded a Walking Club for exercise and conviviality at Park View, where she lived for the last 12 years. The club measured the length of the building’s hallways and calculated walking distances to neighboring towns and beyond. Keeping track of steps and distance, Vi compiled enough steps to have "walked" to and from Minneapolis. Three days before her passing she tallied a mile of pedaling on a stationary bike.

Vi’s earliest memory was of the Armistice Celebration marking the end of World War I. As an adult, she wrote to presidents, senators and representatives and supported military troops with care packages of baked and useful goods and letters of encouragement from World War II to Afghanistan. She maintained a lively and abiding interest in current events, enjoyed telling stories and commenting on politics, and making and cherishing friendships wherever she lived. She was a Past Matron of Eastern Star, of which she was a member for more than 50 years, and she mischievously enjoyed being a longtime member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles.

Vi is survived by and will be deeply missed by her three sons and daughters-in-law, Bob of Granite Falls, Minn., Chuck and Jean of Viroqua, John and Marylyn of New York City and Gladys and Bob Duckson of Burnsville, Minn. Vi also leaves grandchildren, Daniel and Cindy of Los Angeles, Amy of Viroqua, Emily of New York City and Gillian of Austin, Texas, as well as great-grandchildren, Emilia, Isabel, Adeline, William and Owen Driscoll. Also surviving are nieces, Mary Olive Gary Japenga of Sanborn, Iowa, Donna Plato of San Francisco, Mary Ann Driscoll of Corning, Calif., and nephews, Chris Loafman of Cupertino, Calif., Steve Driscoll of Seattle, Wash., and Tom Driscoll of San Francisco. Services will be announced at the convenience of the family.

New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial candidates have found a point of agreement: They all blame Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the big banks for mishandling the state’s foreclosure crisis.A host of Democratic politicians gathered on a sunny side street in Newark’s Vailsburg neighborhood to support Grace Alexander, a medical aide locked in a four-year struggle with Bank of America over the fate of her home.

The event, organized by the labor union to which Alexander belongs, gave state Sen. Barbara Buono, the party’s gubernatorial standard-bearer, and four competing U.S. Senate candidates the chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and cut loose before a throng of television cameras.Buono said slow action by the state caused “families to be displaced from their homes” while whole neighborhoods have been undermined by lowered property values due to vacant homes. This is “preventing our economy from coming back,” Buono declared to applause.

But it was city officials who told residents what they most wanted to hear. They threatened to use eminent domain powers to take over properties that are vacant or in foreclosure limbo, in order to clear them to be put back on the market.Using eminent domain against bank-held mortgages has stirred controversy elsewhere in the nation, but some speakers suggested it in April at a Newark council committee hearing.“The barriers in our way include a governor who will not do his job,” Councilman Ron Rice Jr. said to cheers. “But there are certain things that communities can do of our own volition, using our own powers.”

While stopping short of Rice’s endorsement of the eminent domain tactic, Councilman Darrin Sharif said he is ready to consider the move. Mayor Cory Booker, considered the front-runner for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination, hinted at supporting the idea but did not endorse it directly.“We’re going to explore all the tools in the toolkit” of municipal powers to fight the tide of foreclosures swamping much of the city, Booker said. These neighborhoods suffering from foreclosures includes Alexander’s traditionally stable, working-class neighborhood, the local officials noted.

In the financial wreckage left by the Great Recession, banks and investors have purchased large swaths of housing in Newark and other urban areas. In April, Communities United New Jersey presented a report estimating vacant properties cost the city $56 million in police, fire, health and other costs from 2008 through 2012.Groups like CUNJ and 1199 Service Employees International Union Health Care Employees East, which sponsored the press conference, fear those properties are being held off the market to inflate prices artificially.