ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, Sunday, September 16, 2001
NOTE: I KNOW CAROL HART.
__________
Self-portrait: Mary Carol Hart
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: June 23, 1947, Shreveport
FAMILY: husband Bill; sons Jacob and Joshua
MY BEST QUALITY IS I'm accepting.
MY GREATEST WEAKNESS IS a tendency to get overextended.
WHEN FACED WITH A CRISIS, I pray.
I HAVE A SECRET YEARNING FOR a sculpture in my yard.
IN MY LIFETIME I'D LIKE TO SEE a state institution close.
THE THINGS I VALUE MOST ARE my family and Life Styles.
ONE GOAL I HAVEN'T ACHIEVED YET: I want to hike the Appalachian Trail.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: creative
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, Sunday, September 16, 2001
NOTE: I KNOW CAROL HART.
__________
Mary Carol Hart
MICHELLE BRADFORD
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
FAYETTEVILLE -- Carol Hart is beaming as brightly as Susan Hamm.
Hamm is a "consumer" at Life Styles Inc., the nonprofit agency that Hart founded 25 years ago in Fayetteville to serve adults with developmental disabilities.
There's excited talk in Hamm's apartment today. She's getting a roommate, she tells Hart. She's also chosen a meal to prepare as part of Life Styles' transitional-living program.
Hamm's talk of baked chicken and rice has Hart glowing like a proud mother, though they're the same age.
"Susan and I have been together a long time," says Hart, wrapping an arm around Hamm and chuckling. "We busted her out of the nursing home."
That's not exactly what happened. But Hamm is one of many who've left nursing homes and institutions for independence and opportunity at Life Styles. She has volunteered at a women's shelter thrift shop, learned to hula dance and gone to Disney World -- things she says she would never have gotten to do in a nursing home.
In Life Styles, Hart envisioned a world where adults like Hamm could contribute to the community, manage their own households and even marry. The former '60s activist with formal art training built her dream from the ground up. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. After all, she and her husband had raised pigs and goats on a Madison County mountain.
Against odds, Hart unearthed the resources and support necessary to establish community-based living for the disabled. It all started when eight people from state institutions moved into a section of a motel on College Avenue in Fayetteville. Under Hart's direction, Life Styles has flourished into a nationally lauded agency with five programs that serve some 300 people a year.
Motel rooms have been replaced with apartments and duplexes and the Life Styles staff has grown from one to 100.
"Carol's is the driving force of Life Styles," says Fayetteville attorney Woody Bassett, former president of the agency's board of directors. "She really knows what to do to help people with disabilities. She's constantly out there in the private and public sector finding funds to get things accomplished. She just keeps moving forward."
HEART TO HART
Hart was born in Shreveport, the only daughter of John and Nell Cosgrove. John Cosgrove, an Irish Catholic from Chicago, sold automotive supplies. Nell, a Southern Baptist, was a schoolteacher.
"I was really blessed with a happy, healthy childhood," Hart says. "Mother comes from a large family, and I always had lots of cousins around. My parents always encouraged my brother and me to shine as individuals, whatever we chose to be."
As a young girl, Hart was apt to create and inspire.
Her cousin, Sara A. LeVan, an artist in Black Mountain, N.C., says she and Hart gave painting lessons to neighborhood children back in Shreveport. The experience was especially fulfilling to a young boy with an inoperable brain tumor.
"We hung his wonderful paintings from tree to tree in the yard," LeVan says. "It was an activity that drew this boy out of his shell. Carol had a way of working with folks who needed special care even then. She enjoyed that."
Hart would later use art while teaching at the Richardson Center, a school for disabled children in Fayetteville. Hart would sketch intricate drawings for children who couldn't otherwise understand stories, says longtime friend Susan Davis, a teacher at Jefferson Elementary in Fayetteville.
"That's how Carol is. She leaves no page unturned. And she does it in the most kindhearted way," says Davis.
Hart majored in fine arts at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. She was also interested in people and how they come together, so she minored in sociology.
She met her future husband, Bill Hart, on campus in August 1969. He was beguiled by the coed with the long, dark hair.
"I thought she was interesting, a bit exotic," says Bill Hart, now an earth science teacher at Ramay Junior High in Fayetteville. "She was always with a variety of different people -- art students, her sorority sisters. Sometimes she'd be in her painting clothes. Sometimes she was all dressed up."
Carol and Bill were both active in civil rights and the anti-war movement. Shared ideals drew them close. The relationship turned serious when Bill Hart collided with a freight train while driving his car. He called Carol, the only person he knew with a telephone.
"Carol came down and went to bat for me," Bill Hart remembers. "She got tough with the nurses. She made them clean me up, pull glass out of my eyelids. I ended up with 450 stitches in my face and head. That was the catalyst of our relationship."
They married the following December, a few months after their first date.
LIVING ON THE LAND
After college, the Harts worked as house parents at the East Texas Guidance and Achievement Center for Emotionally Disturbed and Socially Maladjusted Children. The place was nicknamed "Camp Run-Amok." Most of the kids were from inner-city Chicago and wards of the state. Many had been declared delinquent.
"This was the last chance to prepare these kids for public schools," Hart says. "We were hearing concerns about them being accepted in the community, a small town in East Texas. This is where I learned I could work effectively with people who had challenges. It's when I learned I could make a difference."
Later, the Harts used the settlement from Bill's train accident to buy a pickup. For six months, they traveled the United States and Canada, spellbound by the sights and scenery.
When the pickup sputtered out of gas during a visit to brother Michael Cosgrove's family in West Fork, the Harts were ready to root. Already entranced by the beauty of the Ozarks, they chose rural Madison County.
It was the mid-'60s, and the "back to the land" movement was in full bloom. Property was cheap. The Harts got a bargain on majestic Pinnacle Mountain -- 80 acres for $2,000.
The couple cleared their tract of rugged mountain with a team of horses. They built a house (without plumbing) and grew their own food.
The couple raised goats and pigs; mountain neighbors taught them about hog-scalding and making sauerkraut.
"The experience was incredible," Hart remembers fondly. "We had no neighbors we could see, but there was a strong sense of community on that mountain. We all had a connection through the love of the land. When the community came together, there was love you could almost squeeze."
Through Life Styles, Hart has created the same opportunity for independence and community affiliation that she found on the Madison County mountain.
When Brenda Stout came to Life Styles in 1985, she couldn't match her socks. Now, she has her own apartment and is majoring in elementary education at the University of Arkansas.
"I never even considered college until Life Styles," says Stout, 38. "Life Styles showed me to stop listening to people say, 'No, you can't be in a wheelchair and have cerebral palsy and teach kids.' "
FREEDOM FOUNDER
Hart applied for a position as a state social worker in Madison County, but she didn't get the job. (Some 30 years later, in 1995, the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers honored her as Public Citizen of the Year.)
Instead, Hart was hired as a teacher's aide at the Richardson Center. She quickly developed deep esteem for founder Elizabeth Richardson (since deceased), who was holding class in a Presbyterian church basement.
Hart loved her work with the children, but she was troubled to hear their parents worry about their future.
She knew there was reason to worry. Many adults with disabilities lived in institutions. Northwest Arkansas had nothing to offer in the way of "community-based" services.
Hart began researching services and programs around the country. She matched that information with input she'd gathered from prospective consumers and their families.
By 1976, Life Style's board of directors was in place with Hart at the helm as president. Eight people moved into the first residential units at the Vet-View motel across from Washington Regional Medical Center.
"It was an exciting time," Hart says, her eyes sparkling. "Things were changing. We were hearing the community say, 'Yes, people with disabilities can live and work here.' "
Life Styles' goal of independent living in the least-restrictive environment went against the times. Most disabled adults were moving into group homes rather than their own homes.
"That didn't meet the needs of our people," Hart explains. "We asked them what they wanted, and they told us independence, privacy and personal space. Autonomy was important to them."
About the time Life Styles was born, Hart started her own family. She ran a growing agency while grinding her own baby food and reading Dr. Spock.
"Carol really took motherhood seriously," Bill Hart says. "She worked hard to find out what our kids needed. She researched it. She didn't want to rely solely on intuition."
Life Styles was a natural part of growing up for the Hart children, Jacob and Joshua. The boys sold concessions at agency fund-raisers. Later, both were job coaches in Life Styles' supported employment program.
"We didn't even realize there was a difference in people until we hit a certain age," says Jacob Hart, 26, of West Fork. "We were taught to believe that any prejudice against people with disabilities was of the lowest form."
Life Styles has affected other families, too.
For more than a decade, Dr. Brian and Donna Buell have hosted the Polo in the Ozarks benefit at the family's sprawling ranch in Goshen. The 12th annual event is slated for Saturday.
Matt and Allison Buell grew up pitching auction tents along the polo field with Life Styles consumers and then twirling with them under the stars at the gala's evening dance.
"Our kids have really enjoyed this group of people," Donna Buell says. "It's been a real positive experience for them to interact with people with disabilities. Our kids have become very attached to Life Styles. They look forward to this event every year."
Hart takes special satisfaction in the bonds formed through Life Styles.
Lewis McCarty, one of the organization's first eight residents, met his wife, Mary, at Life Styles. The union was one of the first in the Fayetteville community of disabled adults.
Bill Hart walked the bride down the aisle; Carol Hart compiled a photo album of Lewis and Mary's wedding.
"We'd begun helping people have a stronger role in making their own decisions," she explains. "Seeing relatively empty lives become lives so full, well, it was wonderful."
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN
At Life Styles, Hart is quick with a smile, a solution and support. When on task, she'll take off her glasses and walk fast. In conversation, she's animated and makes her hands into fists while explaining concepts.
She divides her time among consumers, staff, volunteers and the public. All agree, this determined woman with the considerate heart is an effective leader.
"It's amazing to me how Carol's been able to adapt for the past 25 years," says Charles Harwell, Life Styles attorney and board member. "The few times she's mentioned a potential problem, it's just gone away. That's because Carol's good at letting people vent their frustrations and then coming up with creative solutions. It's a hallmark of her administration."
Life Styles has experienced explosive growth over the last three years. In 1999, the agency bought six more duplex units to accommodate people who'd been on waiting lists for years. The expansion required money and resources.
"Carol really inspires commitment from her board, her staff and the community," says Anne Fulton, a Life Styles board member whose daughter, Andrea Sharp, is a consumer. "She's a visionary who continues to find services and resources to meet the changing needs of the consumer."
When Life Styles needed office space in the '80s, Hart and others raised $22,000 in pennies. The campaign landed Life Styles a spot in the 1984 Guinness Book of Records.
"We figured if we couldn't find one person to make a large donation, then we'd find 20,000 people to each donate a penny," Hart says matter-of-factly.
The money built Life Styles' Sycamore Street headquarters with classroom space, cooking and laundry facilities and a computer lab.
Hart works hard and expects those around her to do the same. She's maintained a loyal team of staff and volunteers despite a nationwide shortage of workers in the field.
"Carol's an easy person to rally behind," says Karen Takemoto, assistant director and part of the Life Styles staff for 15 years. "She always puts the focus on what's best for the consumer. It's not always that way at other agencies. Carol's good at gathering people behind a cause. She goes out of her way for others."
MADE IN THE SHADE
Carol and Bill Hart live in a comfortable cedar house in Farmington. Sweeping trees shade the home in the heat of summer. The Harts enjoy the outdoors and lived without air conditioning until just two years ago.
Carol Hart loves to work in her yard and has cultivated the grounds with gardens of colorful flowers and lush plants. Gardening, like art, is tactile expression that Hart yearns for. She just completed an oil-painting class and bought new brushes. The experience has her believing she'll return to art when she retires.
"I hadn't painted in years," Hart says, "but my hands remembered. I've always been a painterly painter. I like to have a lot of paint on my brush. I like to smell it and feel it."
Lately, Hart's been contemplating welding a sculpture. Cousin LeVan describes an unconventional Hart design called The Death of Mary Poppins.
"It was a unique expression of an umbrella in pieces and parts with various other objects attached," says LeVan. "It was quite compelling."
When Hart's not running an agency, she's also an elder at the First United Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville.
At home, she is casually dressed in sandals and jeans or shorts. Downtime is spent with close family members: Bill, her mother, her sons and her 3-year-old granddaughter, Maddie. (The tot calls Hart "Cat," which has spurred Hart to sign family cards with a paw print.)
Her latest cultural experience was a trip to a demolition derby, but she prefers gatherings with the gang under the family gazebo. Bill does the cooking, which includes tofu kabobs for Carol, a vegetarian.
It's a peaceful family scene, and yet the Life Styles executive director is facing the greatest challenge of her life. Her mother, Nell, has Alzheimer's disease. Hart has found it difficult to relax and accept the changes her mother's going through. But she's resolute.
"It's not what happens to you in life," she says, "but how you react to what happens."