ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Vivian Eveloff, who led a longstanding program aimed at getting more Missouri women involved in government and politics, died Dec. 5 at an assisted living facility in Creve Coeur of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 83.
Eveloff, a longtime Democratic activist, founded the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1996 and was its director for about two decades until her retirement.
Eveloff
The nonpartisan institute offered training and networking for women interested in running for local-level and higher elected offices or filling other governmental and civic roles.
The institute also sponsored leadership seminars and conferences with speakers and established a data bank of potential women nominees for appointive positions.
The institute also held an annual weeklong leadership program for female students from state universities across Missouri, including mock legislative sessions in Jefferson City.
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“It was a look at how things work,” said Betty Van Uum, a former St. Louis County Council member and retired UMSL official.
After Eveloff retired, the institute ended as a separate entity but its leadership program for women students continued in redesigned form, moving to UMSL’s College of Education.
Van Uum said Eveloff’s work at the institute was an outgrowth of her role with Van Uum and a few others organizing the metro area’s Women’s Political Caucus in the early 1970s.
“She spent much of her entire professional life helping others succeed,” Van Uum said.
Van Uum said Eveloff also worked to increase the number of women in judgeships and mentored female lawyers on how to get considered by the panels that recommend judicial nominees to governors.
On and off over the years, some Republicans in the Missouri Legislature attacked the Shear Institute as slanted toward Democrats and tried to eliminate its state funding. Each time, Eveloff and other supporters of the institute insisted that they worked to involve people from both major parties.
Eveloff grew up in Kansas City and earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Boston University.
After college, she taught English and journalism at University City High School and worked in research at Washington University led by Barry Commoner, a nationally-known professor and environmentalist.
Eveloff got involved in campaigns for numerous Democratic candidates over several decades. One was Shear, a Clayton Democrat who eventually served in the Missouri House for 26 years — a record for a woman. The institute was renamed in Shear’s honor after her death in 1998.
Eveloff’s career also included work as a governmental relations official for Monsanto Co. and serving as Democratic committeewoman for Hadley Township in the county.
In 1994, she was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for a state Senate seat. She later was named by then-Gov. Mel Carnahan, a Democrat, to the state’s Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline of Judges.
In 2007, Eveloff, a Clayton resident who previously lived in Richmond Heights, was on a committee that studied merging the two cities but ultimately recommended against the idea.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Jan. 3 at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman Boulevard.
Among the survivors are a daughter, Sibyl Goldman of Los Angeles; a son, Daniel Goldman of Aspen, Colorado; a sister, Sandra Eveloff of Kansas City and three grandchildren.
