Adalu "Lu" C. Bro
Adalu "Lu" Carpenter Bro, Oblate in the Order of Julian of Norwich (ObJN), fine arts college professor, author, artist, and iconographer, died September 29, 2023, in Walla Walla WA. She was 90 years old.
Lu was born at home on April 30, 1933, in Falfurrias TX, the middle of three children to Forrest Cornelius Carpenter and Ada Pearl (Kurtz) Carpenter. At the time, her father was serving as a minister for a local Evangelical and Reformed Church, and her mother did some teaching. The family moved to rural Ohio near Akron for Lu's early years, where her father continued to serve in the church there. Lu attended public school for grades K-3. She loved to climb and talk to trees, paint, write poetry, and she longed to fly planes.
Desiring a climate change for health reasons, Lu's father relocated the family to Las Vegas NV, when Lu was nine. Lu's mother secured a teaching position in the public schools and served as the family's principal breadwinner. One of Lu's most vivid memories was waking up one night, disturbed by the sudden flood of bright orange light in her bedroom. The active nuclear test site for the atomic bomb was only 65 miles north of town. Lu attended public school in Las Vegas, completing 12th grade in 1951. While not allowed to attend the English classes their mother taught as a full-time teacher at the Las Vegas High School, Lu and her siblings Ann and Kurtz all recall the steady reinforcement their mother provided at home for speaking and writing good English. Lu especially loved literature and poetry as her favorite subjects.
Lu's mother valued higher education for all her children, having herself graduated from college in 1923, a rarity for women of her generation. Because of family and church connections to the region, Ada sent both Lu and her older sister Ann to her alma mater, McPherson College in McPherson KS.
Degree options were very limited for women, especially for those interested in the arts. Against her best instincts, Lu followed the strong recommendations to carry on with traditional choices for women. She became a popular cheerleader, got engaged to the football team captain, and completed a Home Economics degree. By the time she graduated in 1955, however, she luckily and bravely embraced the epiphany that there was more for her in life than tradition - she called off the engagement and threw away the pompoms.
While women still could not fly commercial airplanes as pilots, Lu, longing to be in the air, applied for and was accepted into the United Airlines Stewardess Training Program, meeting the mid-1950s age-height-weight requirements the company mandated for "young, single, and pretty" women to care for passengers. Lu selected Chicago IL, as her home base, lived in a Hyde Park high-rise hotel apartment she shared with eight other "stews," and flew the Friendly Skies out of Midway Airport. A fellow stewardess, paired with her on western routes, took Lu to an Episcopal church in California, and Lu connected completely.
One Sunday, as she tried to find the closest Episcopal church near her Hyde Park residence, she walked in fairly by accident to a different Episcopal church and met Andrew "Andy" Harmon Bro, a young cleric in training. Within eight months, they were married at the Church of the Redeemer (Hyde Park) on July 28, 1956. They set up house in Wilmette IL, as Andy finished seminary and became an ordained Episcopal priest. Lu took art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Their first child Sarah, was born right before the family moved to Mount Carroll IL, in 1959, where Andy had taken a chaplaincy position at Shimer College. Their second child Gustav "Gus" was born two years later.
Lu and Andy moved with their two young children to Iowa City IA, in 1964 to complete tandem graduate degrees at the University of Iowa (UI). Lu taught junior and senior high school fine arts as a full-time day job, working on her own classes at night and on weekends. Lu graduated from the UI School of Art and Art History with Master of Arts (MA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Drawing and Painting in 1967 and 1969, respectively.
Lu garnered a one-year teaching position in the art department at Simpson College in Indianola IA, where the family lived from 1970-71. Through connections made there, she applied for and was accepted as an Instructor of Fine Art at Iowa State University (ISU) in Ames IA, beginning in 1971. Lu taught life drawing, painting, watercolor, and art history for over 28 years at ISU, retiring in 1999 as a tenured full professor within the College of Design - Department of Art and Design. Over her professorial timeline, she wrote and published three textbooks: Drawing: A Studio Guide; Figure and Form, Volume One; and Figure and Form, Volume Two. She appeared in multiple national shows at universities and art centers, featuring paintings (oil), emulsion photography with oil, drawings (pencil, ink), and cast sculpture (bronze). Significantly, she spoke at the 1995 College Art Association Annual Meeting in San Antonio TX, discussing the ideology of life drawing studio practice in the 1990s.
Following a shared love of airplanes, commingled with Andy's work in fundraising for air and space museums in the mid-1980s, both Andy and Lu became private pilots. Lu loved to be airborne and at the helm at last, a dream come true. She further attained her commercial pilot certificate, a personal best. With Andy, she also shared a love of travel and learning. Perhaps the most beloved trip they enjoyed was with the Saint George's College in Jerusalem, where they spent five weeks in 1990 studying and walking the steps of the Old and New Testaments in the Holy Land.
Lu's commitment to the Episcopal church included completing the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program. She volunteered as a chaplain in hospitals and a member of the pastoral care team, a position she loved. She moved her art into iconography, training under Vladislav Andreev, Prosopon School of Iconology, and wrote nearly 30 Byzantine icons in her later years. She became an Oblate within the Order of Julian of Norwich, connecting deeply to this celebrated mystic whose Revelations of Divine Love (or Showings) is generally considered one of the most remarkable documents of medieval religious experience. She wrote and published a short collection of poems inspired by her faith.
Andy and Lu made northwest Illinois a place to go back to after the years Andy spent founding, running, and engaging with the summer theater Timber Lake Playhouse outside Mount Carroll and doing clergy supply for local parishes. They eventually settled at Lake Carroll outside Lanark IL, on a two-acre expanse for nearly 18 years. Andy and Lu were married 63 years at the time of Andy's death in January 2020. She claims Andy gave her her life when he invited her to go to graduate school with him back in 1964, thereby launching her own career. As her husband, editor, principal date for art shows, classical concerts, theater and films, spiritual guide, fellow dachshund lover, and travel companion, she could not have asked for better.
Source: Obituary, Ames Tribune, Oct. 12, 2023
