A HOUSE RESOLUTION to honor the life of Joan Easley.
Whereas, Joan Crawford Easley was born on February 21st,
1931, in Detroit, Michigan, and passed away on February 5th of
this year in Indianapolis; and,
Whereas, having graduated from Cathedral High School in
Indianapolis, Mrs. Easley attended St. Mary's College in Notre
Dame, one of the first women's colleges in the country, where
she took a degree in home economics, with minors in education
and theology; and,
Whereas, her earliest jobs out of school included teaching
home economics, as well as lip reading and speech at the
School for the Deaf, and working as a traveling home
economist, penning advice columns on topics related to her
specialty for small-town newspapers under the pseudonym
Susan Low; and,
Whereas, owing her evident success at WFBM, Mrs. Easley
was given the opportunity investors to start her own marketing
consulting business, Community Market Research, and it was
in pursuit of this opportunity that she was introduced to John
Easley, the man who soon became her husband and the father
of her son and daughter; and,
Whereas, though both Mr. and Mrs. Easley were busy with
their separate businesses, they took such an interest in
vine-planting and wine-making that they began to invest in
small farm wineries, and even to make their own wine in the
basement of their North Meridian home, and, with a small
group of fellow enthusiasts and the assistance of the Indiana
Farm Bureau, Mr. and Mrs. Easley successfully petitioned the
Indiana General Assembly to pass the Indiana Small Farm
Winery Act in 1971, legislation which allowed the number of
small family wineries in Indiana to grow from no more than a
handful to several dozen today; and,
Whereas, Mrs. Easley's many achievements in education,
business and farming mark her as a pioneer for women's rights
and opportunities in Indiana, and many women working and
succeeding today in Indiana owe their success partly to her
efforts and the trails blazed by her; and,
Whereas, although a dedicated business woman, Mrs.
Easley never failed to put the needs of her family first, and to
dedicate herself to her husband and son and daughter most of
all, and her lasting legacy will be her family and the love she
felt for them: Therefore,
DR 4832/DI ib