Editor’s note: This post is Part 4 of “Celebrating the People of Bloomington,” a special retrospective revisiting some of the stories Bloom has published since its inception in 2006. The details in these stories have not been changed since they were originally written, but we have provided updates when possible. Each story highlights an individual who contributed to making Bloomington a compassionate, diverse, and creative community. For more stories from “Celebrating the People of Bloomington,” click here.
Charlotte Zietlow: Woman of Influence
Charlotte Zietlow’s influence is all around Bloomington. Zietlow, 73, spent three years on City Council in the ’70s, then was Monroe County’s first female commissioner for seven years. “My main contribution has been rallying different people in the community to get behind an idea,” she says.
Zietlow’s commitment to participatory democracy stems from a trip with her husband to Czechoslovakia in 1969. “We saw what it was like to live in a totalitarian regime,” she says. “We thought, ‘We have to go back and protect our democracy.’” She admits her work has sometimes been an uphill battle, but says all her efforts have been worthwhile.
“Nothing doesn’t count,” she says. “Everything makes a difference in your life.”
Zietlow led the effort to preserve the Monroe County courthouse, and the Charlotte Zietlow Justice Center at North Walnut and West 7th Street is named for her. She remains active on many boards and committees in the community.
Andy Mallor: B-town’s Best-Dressed Lawyer
Andy Mallor is consistently voted one of Indiana’s Top 50 Super Lawyers by Law & Politics magazine. He is also Bloomington’s most high-profile haberdasher, selling custom- made suits and other upscale clothing from his downtown store, Andrew Davis Menswear.
It’s a dual career that fits so well, Mallor says, that not even road trips or the end of the workday are excuses to dress down. “I do wear sweats at home, sometimes,” he admits.
The New Jersey native moved to Bloomington 41 years ago as an Indiana University freshman and never left. With a passion for estate planning and litigation, he helped establish the firm Mallor, Clendening, Grodner & Bohrer.
Mallor opened Andrew Davis Menswear at 101 W. Kirkwood in the fall of 2007.
The Irrepressible Menahem Pressler
After 60 years of worldwide touring—not to mention 53 years teaching at Indiana University— 84-year-old piano virtuoso Menahem Pressler isn’t slowing down. His skill and stamina place him among the world’s greatest pianists. This summer, will he will embark on a farewell tour of the Beaux Arts Trio, the piano-violin-cello group Pressler founded in 1955.
But Pressler has no plans to slow down. He says he has never played or felt better and is looking forward to a productive solo career.
And if that weren’t impressive enough, his personal journey is equally remarkable. Born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1923, he, his parents, and siblings narrowly escaped the Nazis in 1938. The rest of his family all perished.
Toby Strout: Women’s Advocate
Toby Strout sees the big picture. In her 20 years as executive director of Middle Way House, a domestic violence shelter and advocacy center, she’s learned that domestic violence doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
“It makes no sense to treat domestic violence as just an individual issue, because it’s nearly everywhere,” she says.
Strout also pursues social justice for women through her involvement with the Bloomington Commission on the Status of Women, the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Coalition for Wage Equity in Indiana, and the Sexual Assault Standards and Certification Board of Indiana.
She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Distinguished Hoosier award from the governor of Indiana.
Strout died February 27, 2017, at the age of 71.
Bob Dixon: Keeper of the Clock
With its copper canopy and legendary fish weathervane, the courthouse clock is Bloomington’s best-known icon. Bob Dixon, 82, is the man who keeps it running and right.
Once a week, he climbs several flights of stairs to the top of the courthouse. Far above the clicking keyboards and ringing phones of the county’s public servants, Dixon winds the clock by hand with an antique crank, performs regular maintenance, and deals with any problems that might occur.
Dixon learned his craft from his father, Victor, and began caring for the clock in 1955. Since retiring from the Indiana University audio-visual department in 1991, he has been able to tend the clock at more convenient hours. “I just consider it a public service,” he says.
Dixon died March 13, 2011, at the age of 86.
Jill Bolte Taylor: Bloomington’s Gift to the World
There’s an online video of Bloomington neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor that’s getting an average of 20,000 hits each day. In it, Taylor—named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World— describes how she was able to deduce that she was having a stroke on the morning of December 10, 1996.
The video clip is from this year’s TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference. Taylor’s presentation was a crowd favorite, earning the previously unknown scientist instant fame. The talk explored the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
“I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world,” Taylor says. “And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.”
Laura Marks & Jessica Mott: Food Pantry Founders
When Laura Marks and Jessica Mott founded Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, a food pantry that serves some 1,500 people each week, they had a clear idea of how they wanted to run the show.
Rather than operating with food stamps, the two women decided to open their pantry to anyone in need of food, based on the honor system. They also wanted to give people every opportunity to feel good about picking up a free bag of groceries each week. “We decided to let people pick their own food rather than giving out standardized boxes,” Mott says.
Mother Hubbard’s has distributed over 325,000 bags containing over 3 million pounds of food since opening in 1998.
Bloomington’s Chile Woman: She’s Hot, Hot, Hot!
Susan Welsand has a name, but this may be the only time you’ll ever read it. To Bloomington Farmers’ Market-goers and her mail-order customers nationwide, she is The Chile Woman. You’ll find her on market mornings decked out in chile peppers.
Welsand has been at this chile business since the mid-1980s. Frustrated with the local lack of choice in plants, she started growing from seeds herself. Today she grows more than 1,000 varieties—trading seeds with growers around the world and helping to preserve endangered species. She is always eager to pick up new types to grow (and she takes requests).
