Below the article, find numerous comments from alumni about Ms. Cole’s legacy.

Art teacher Deborah Cole served the Francis W. Parker community for nearly three decades. An instructor in ceramics, drawing, sculpture, and more, her colleagues knew her to be instrumental to the continued success of the Art Department.

Cole passed away on Friday, January 11, after “having struggled with a very serious illness,” according to Principal Daniel Frank ’74.“Debbie became ill late last spring and took this year off to treat the disease. She planned to retire at the end of this year.”

On Sunday, January 13, Upper School Head Justin Brandon shared an email with the student body from Parker’s Division Heads notifying the community of Cole’s passing.

Beyond the classroom, Cole was, by recollection of her colleagues in the Art Department, civically minded, caring notably about social and environmental reform. She attended both the Women’s March Chicago and the March for Our Lives rally. Cole also traveled with Upper School students to build houses as a part of the former “Homes for Hope” Cookies trip.

Banding together in her honor, Parker commemorated Cole with a tribute Morning Ex on Monday, January 14. Frank began the assembly with his own comments. After Frank, Upper School choir Grape Jam, clad in black, performed “Golden Slumbers” by the Beatles, before giving way to remarks from Turner, art teacher Anne Blasko, and Upper School english teachers Mike Mahany and Bonnie Seebold.

In addition to considering her death, the presenters told stories from Cole’s life. “It’s okay, it’s okay to be sad,” Blasko said to the crowd, recalling a trip with Cole to California. “She made it fun, like we were all one big happy family. She brought joy to everybody she was with.”

Mahany recollected her compassion similarly, recalling Cole’s enthusiasm to hear his stories. “You know how when you come back from a weekend or come back from a break and someone asks you how it was and you say fine and walk away?” he asked. “Debbie never let me get away with that.” “It was that she was very steady, knowledgeable, caring person, who really thought deeply about a person,” Frank said, later reflecting on Mahany’s comment.

Seebold and Mahany remembered Cole at the Morning Ex by considering the life of Mary Oliver, an American poet who––according to Seebold––“understood both beauty, artistry, and loss.”

“This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart,” Mahany said, reading Oliver’s “Peonies,” “as the sun rises, as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers.”

In the days following the Morning Ex, community members continued to grapple with Cole’s death. “She went way too soon,” sophomore Gabriel Logan said.

“The crazy part of it, is that I saw her everyday, almost everyday,” sophomore Grace Conrad said. “She needed to watch everyone work, everyone grow, everyone change. Just looking at her, you feel happier. That big red hair, and her smile, and her laugh.”

“She was one of those people where, when I imagine Ms. Cole, I imagine her laughing,” Ben Weiss ’16 said. “She had this incredible laugh.”

Lucy Hartman ’16 shares Weiss’s sentiment. “When I think of her, I think of her laugh,” Hartman said. “She had one of those laughs where she would just sit her head back and totally just laugh. It was one of the most beautiful things you can imagine––just somebody being really free about how they express joy.”

Turner and Blasko considered Cole’s laughs to be a source of joy in the Art Department. “She had one of the greatest laughs of anybody…we would all always be laughing,” Turner said, echoing Weiss and Hartman. “She had a lot of different laughs,” Blasko said, “like the low, little one and then she had the big cackle.”

“She loved to support and to help,” Conrad said. “Her hugs were so good.” Those in Cole’s orbit remembered her “as a helper,” by Frank’s account.

“She would stop whatever she was doing to help,” art teacher Nick Rupard said. “She would always just tell you what to do.” “Debbie was my Swiss army knife,” Blasko said. “She always had just what you needed.”

“She would see the big picture of what would help a set of students or what would help the department or what would help the school somewhere,” Frank said. “She dedicated her life to creating beauty.”

Publicly, Cole sought to champion beauty by aiding in the curation of the Kupcinet Gallery—a regular art display which lines the wall that runs from the front alcove to the Diane and David B. Heller Auditorium. Hartman has held on to Cole’s passion for beauty. “If something doesn’t go my way or something doesn’t fit right, it’s about considering what you can find beautiful in that situation,” she said. “That’s supported me as a person.”

Logan and Weiss recall a similar emphasis on Cole aiding her students outside of the art world. “I feel like she really, really, dove deep into her students’ minds and how she could help them,” Logan said. “When I was with her, she would shift the emphasis away from perfection and in the direction of expression,” Weiss said.

Though Cole maintained no expectations for standard of work, her fellow teachers were consistently motivated to improve their standard of effort. “There was definitely quality control,” Turner said. “In her classroom she set the bar high, so you knew in your classroom you had to set the bar high too. She kept the bar high all of the time. It never came down.”

Weiss sees Parker suffering as an institution in Cole’s absence. “There’s almost a part of Parker identity that is lost when someone who is as prolific as her passes,” he said. “The experience that she had, it’s going to be very hard to regain and can only be remade through time. It’s the joy she brought to the people who would show up––I don’t know how you replace that.”

“She understood what it means to be happy and to make others happy,” Conrad said. “There’s this quote that…I think of all the time that says ‘the noblest act is that of making others happy’ and that’s when I instantly think of Ms. Cole.”

Turner understands Cole’s passing as an opportunity to embrace Conrad’s motivational thinking. “There’s no loss. This is inspiration,” he said. “When people pass on, you should be inspired not sad.”

Frank rests among the inspired. “It’s important to pause at a moment of loss, for us all to slow down and take stock of those qualities that we continue to appreciate about Deb Cole,” he said. “We have to try our best to be mindful and integrate those qualities even more attentively in how we carry out our own day to day relationships with other people.”

In the mold of Turner and Frank, Weiss doesn’t believe that Cole’s death marks the end of her impact on the Parker community or even the world at large. “As long as her students are using their hands and making art,” he said, “in that way, it’s sort of like her influence continues to ripple throughout all of our lives.”

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I’m very saddened to hear the news of Ms. Cole’s passing. I wrote this note/essay/passage about her. It’s quite long, but Ms. Cole meant a lot to me and truly impacted my life, and I wanted to communicate that as much as I could to her family.

— Isobel Bender