Lois Glewwe was known for sharing — her time, her opinions and her wealth of knowledge about local history, which leapt from the pages of the books, blogs and social media posts she wrote.
"I've heard that when people like Lois die, it's like burning a library," said South St. Paul Mayor Jimmy Francis, whose family has known Glewwe's for a century.
Glewwe, a South St. Paul author, storyteller and archivist, died Feb. 16 after an accident at home. She was 72.
Lois Anne Glewwe was born to Ethel and Reuben Glewwe in 1950, the baby of the family by 18 years; siblings Elva and Rollin were young adults when she arrived. Her father owned a car dealership and worked for Minnesota's highway department while her mother stayed home, often caring for foster children.
Glewwe was like a cousin to niece LouAnn Goossens, who remembers playing dress up with her in the backyard as a child and listening to the Four Seasons croon "Big Girls Don't Cry" on Glewwe's very own record player.
Glewwe attended the University of Minnesota, where she studied Indian art history. She then received her masters degree in southeast Asian art at the University of Pennsylvania and moved to India. After a year, she came home with a nose piercing and a penchant for donning saris, which fascinated Goossens.
"She was like a magnet — you wanted to talk to her," Goossens said.
She returned home in 1985 to care for her parents, who died in 1986. For the next decade, she worked a series of nonprofit jobs in and around St. Paul, several of them high-profile.
