The Transformers
In toy stores and movies, transformers are heartless robots, but we’ve found transformers here in our community who are all heart. They’re changing homes and changing lives and they’re turning our town into a happier, healthier, more beautiful place.
Photos By L.G. Patterson
Seizing Power
A Transformed Michelle Ishmael Becomes A Transformer
By Anita Neal Harrison
Michelle Ishmael spent most of her life accepting limitations. Born with Marfan’s Syndrome, a hereditary connective tissue disorder, she grew up with heart and eye problems that prevented her from “running and playing like the other kids.” Doctors gave her a life expectancy of 30 years but in 2007, she turned 49. She was alive but not well; both her eyesight and her heart were failing.
“I was faced with an aortic root replacement, loss of vision and, as if that weren’t enough, my husband said, ‘Then she came down the menopause’ — and 30 extra pounds!” Ishmael says.
Used to feeling powerless in matters of health, Ishmael says her transformation began in her cardiologist’s office. She’d come through successful open-heart surgery and recovered her sight following two lens transplants, but she had not regained a sense of control or optimism.
“I said to [my cardiologist]: ‘I don’t know myself, don’t feel well. I’ve gained weight. My blood pressure is too high —’ and he interrupted and said, ‘If anyone can do something, you can. Do it. Lose weight!’ ”
The mild rebuke became a shot of encouragement. On that same day, April 1, 2008, Ishmael called Jenny Craig and visited the center.
“I checked my pride at the door and entered,” she says. “That first day, I felt I had already succeeded. They made me feel like I had hope. That was something I had almost given up on.”
In the following seven months, Ishmael dropped seven sizes. Her blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels all entered a healthy range, and her thyroid was finally under control. She felt better — much better — full of energy and self-respect.
“I found myself again,” she says.
The change affected everything, including what she wanted to be when she grew up. A longtime business owner (Ishmael has owned Express Personnel Services for 21 years), she decided to add part-time consulting work for Jenny Craig. She began in October 2008 and later became a full-time consultant. This past June, she became assistant center director.
She loves it. Since junior high, she has taken as her motto one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous lines: “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“I’ve never thought of myself as a leader, but I am someone who says: ‘C’mon! Let’s get ’er done!’ and having that attitude empowers others to come along with you,” she says.
Her joy shines through as she shares her clients’ transformation stories — such as the dad who lost 50 pounds and proudly walked his daughter down the aisle or the woman who lost 87 pounds and 85 inches and no longer has to take insulin.
“The daily testimonials are endless,” she says with pride. “I am completely fulfilled by our clients and their successes.”
Telling her story, Ishmael more than once uses the phrase, “Who would’ve thought?”
Indeed, she says, “Who would’ve thought that making a call to Jenny Craig would change my life? But it did.”
Ishmael is still amazed at how much her life has changed in the last two years, all because she realized she has the power to change her future.
“I wasn’t supposed to live past 30, but now I have a future, and it changes everything,” she says. “I better be the best I can be for that future; it’s up to me to take care of myself for that future.”
Remaking History
Karla Winchester Transforms Architectural Salvage Into Savvy Décor
By Sandy Selby
Karla Winchester insists she is not a dumpster diver. “I’m a dumpster diva,” she says with a laugh.
The interior decorator and owner of a new Rocheport shop — Grace: A Place Of Restoration — has built a following for her imaginative use of architectural salvage. The proof is all over her store: in the wooden umbrella frame hanging upside down from the ceiling, bedecked in lights and greenery; in a matching set of old black doors that become elegant parentheses for the artwork between them; and in a sturdy pair of staircase spindles recreated as candleholders.
Winchester admits she rarely sees things as what they are; she sees them as what they could be.
When this Mizzou alum left Columbia after graduation in the 1980s, she moved to St. Louis and launched a decorating business. She gave up her design work for a while when a divorce made it necessary for her to find a job with benefits, but as she traveled around the Midwest as a college recruiter, she’d stop in at antique shops along her route. The relationships she formed with those antique dealers were helpful when she decided to return to decorating work full time and to start her own store in Rocheport. Her plan is to rebuild her interior decorating business while also stocking her store with antique salvaged items she has transformed into “exceptional and unique treasures.”
Her attitude may seem unusual for someone who owns a retail business, but Winchester says it’s not all about sales. For her, it’s as important to build relationships with customers and teach others what she has learned about interior decorating.
“When I first started my design company, I had no money to advertise,” she says. “I became a guest speaker. That’s how I built my business.” She plans to employ that philosophy again by hosting design workshops at her store.
Winchester believes the time is right to introduce mid-Missouri to the pleasures of decorating with architectural salvage. “There’s a lot of beauty in it,” she says. “These are imperfect things but they are full of color and texture. More and more people are staying where they are and want to bring that warmth, texture and nostalgia to their home.”
She does offer a few caveats to amateur salvage-seekers, and first on her list is to beware of lead paint. “I don’t encourage people with small children to use these pieces. By stripping the objects, you can take care of that problem.”
And take care that you’re not getting more than an interesting object d’art when you bring salvaged wood into your home. “Make sure you don’t have active ants or termites,” she cautions.
Not every architectural salvage project is right for the inexperienced do-it-yourselfer, Winchester says. She recommends leaving the installation of antique windows and reclaimed wood floors to professional installers. There are still plenty of opportunities for the average weekend warrior to introduce the charm of yesteryear into modern spaces.
“You don’t have to have a lot of money,” she says. “These things are already around.”
What’s In Karla Winchester’s B.A.G.G.?
Karla Winchester says if you include these elements in a room, good interior design is in the B.A.G.G.
B = Black: Just a touch can create depth and drama.
A = Artwork and Accessories: These can add your personal stamp to a room.
G = Glass: It adds lightness to a room full of wood and deep colors.
G = Greenery: Plants add life to a room.
Dreaming Big
The Central Missouri Dream Factory Transforms Despair Into Hope
By Christina Ingoglia
Michelle Windmoeller isn’t a fairy godmother, but she spends her time granting wishes.
As area coordinator for The Dream Factory of Central Missouri, Windmoeller works with critically ill children and those with chronic ailments, making dreams come true.
“Most of our children are referred to us through social workers at the hospital or through the child’s physician,” she says.
The referrals come to a gaggle of volunteers eager to make a difference in a child’s life. Volunteer Anne Farrow is working on her first dream. “We’re a 100 percent volunteer organization,” Farrow says. “More than 92 percent of money that we raise goes directly to the children’s dreams. At the national level we only have three full-time employees, and there are 36 chapters around the country.”
The Dream Factory of Central Missouri has only 19 volunteers who work directly on dreams. “Hopefully our chapter is going to grant our 500th dream this upcoming year,” Farrow says. “It’s incredible because we are a small group of core volunteers, and so much has been done in 25 years.”
Rachel’s Dream
“More than half of the dreams are trips to Disney,” says Tim Bach, vice president of the central Missouri chapter. And so, two years ago, when he had a chance to work on a dream that was a little different, he got excited.
“When they first told me about [the dream] I didn’t know how long it was going to take to get better or if I was going to get better,” says Rachel Tanski, who was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 15. “I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to do something like that on my own. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get to be well enough to go to college and then get a job. At the time, it was a breath of fresh air. I wanted to be able to accomplish one of my dreams, no matter what.”
Tanski, now 18, says The Dream Factory volunteers kept in touch during her illness so they could make her dream happen as soon as she was ready. “From the beginning I knew I wanted to do something with magazines,” Tanski says.
In the summer of 2008, Tanski shadowed Glenda Bailey, editor of Harper’s Bazaar.
“I bought a Harper’s Bazaar magazine, opened it up and found out who the editor was,” Bach says. “Then I found an e-mail address and got through to her assistant. It was all just amazing. There were more than 100 e-mails back and forth. I enjoy the challenging dreams, researching them, writing e-mails, making calls.”
Bach admits it was a lot of work, “but then I got the letter from Glenda Bailey thanking us. Then they did an article in Harper’s Bazaar and wrote about Rachel’s experience.”
The experience has awed Tanski, who is in remission and currently a student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. “When you get really sick you have a lot of friends in high school,” she says, “people you hang out with at lunch, but there aren’t that many people who come to the hospital all the time. The fact that the Dream Factory people, who didn’t know me before or know my parents, and had no reason to come see me, the fact that they wanted to do this stuff for me and cared so much, is just amazing.”
Building A Family Of Dreamers
The Dream Factory may not be able to cure children’s’ illnesses, but Windmoeller says the group can give a child hope.
“One thing that the social workers and doctors tell us — when children come in for treatment after their dreams — is they’re smiling and happy,” she says. “We’ve had kids go down to central Florida and when they were there they eat and smile. This is a big deal for kids who are sick. A dream gives them hope.”
The chapter also holds “continuing contact” events. Andrew James, another volunteer and the self-anointed oddball of the group, coordinates volunteers and helps with event planning.
“The MU Nursing School sent a total of 30 volunteers between two different events and we just started two months ago,” he says. James, like all of the volunteers, is emotionally invested in the dreamers’ lives. “Why do I dedicate as much time? Well, we don’t cure cancer. A cure for cancer 20 years from now is not going to affect them in the slightest.”
For Windmoeller, it comes down to the rippling effect The Dream Factory has on each child.
“What’s satisfying for me are the events that we hold over the course of the year when the families come and we get to spend time with them,” she says. “At our holiday party the deejay was playing “The Electric Slide” and the moms and the dads and the kids — kids who are in wheelchairs or have difficulties moving — were out there dancing and smiling.”