Melanie Shouse, a political activist her entire life, will be the guest of honor at a final rally – her Valentine’s Day memorial service. She wanted all those attending to wear their favorite political attire. Hers was Obama-wear.

Ms. Shouse (right) died at her home in Overland on Saturday (Jan. 30) from stage four breast cancer. For the past several years, she had been a foot soldier for Obama and health-care reform.

The admiration was mutual. When President Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Committee in Washington on Thursday (Feb. 4), he spoke of his continuing passion for health care reform by invoking Ms. Shouse’s name.

“She was fighting that whole time not just to get me elected, not even to get herself health insurance, but because she understood that there were others coming behind her who were going to find themselves in the same situation and she didn't want somebody else going through that same thing.”

Brian Wahby, the head of the city of St. Louis Democratic Party, was on hand for the president’s speech.

“It was really poignant and the highest honor for Melanie, having the president mention her and use her fight as a clarion call for health-care reform,” Wahby said. “I think it will help us redouble our efforts to move this bill and this policy forward.”

Steve Hart, the partner Ms. Shouse met on a dreary day on the Greyhound picket lines in San Francisco 20 years ago, said he found the mention of her in the president’s speech “heartwarming”.

“I welled up when I heard it,” Hart said.

For the past four and a half years, Melanie Shouse had been in a boxing match with breast cancer. Shortly after being diagnosed, she entered a fight with the referee – her health-care provider. She lost to both in the fourth round.

An Early Activist

Ms. Shouse was one of the president’s earliest and fiercest campaign supporters. She was at his swearing-in ceremony when he became a U.S. senator from Illinois; she was in Springfield, Ill., when he declared for president, and she immediately formed North County for Obama. When he was elected in November 2008, she was in Grant Park in Chicago for the victory speech. In January 2009, she headed to Washington for the inauguration. She had long been an advocate for health-care issues in Missouri, so she readily took up the president’s signature legislation: health-care overhaul. It would become her very personal fight.

Ms. Shouse was born in Indiana, but grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, graduating from high school in Plano, Texas. After graduating in 1989 with honors from Texas A&M University with a bachelor of science in zoology, she headed for San Francisco. Ms. Shouse and Hart published “Sleepers Awake,” a bi-annual magazine advocating political awareness.

She and Hart came to the St. Louis area from San Francisco in 1996 to help care for Hart’s father. Shortly after arriving in Olivette, the two formed their specialty food business, Sweet Meat Stix, selling beef kabobs from humanely raised beef at local festivals. In 2004, they spent everything they had and more, $30,000, to renovate a former Domino’s facility and open a permanent store in St. Ann.

Chasing the Dream – without Health Care

Ms. Shouse said she was chasing the American dream. It would soon become a nightmare. Last October, four years after her cancer diagnosis, Ms. Shouse described her health care ordeal during an interview on KDHX’s cable show, LaborVision.

“I was only able to afford catastrophic health insurance coverage with about $8,000 in co-pays and deductibles,” Ms. Shouse said. “As a result, I put off getting preventive services and medical screenings and treatments.”

Photos courtesy of the family

Health Insurance Reform Rally - Sept, 22, 2009: Melanie Shouse (left), who had spoken at the Health Insurance Reform Rally on Sept. 22, 2009, and The Rev. Mary A. Albert pastor of Epiphany United Church of Christ, were denied entrance to the Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield building and were escorted from the premises.

In 2005, she went directly to the Siteman Cancer Center and was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.

“The delay in treatment and diagnosis was the result of my inadequate medical coverage,” Ms. Shouse said matter-of-factly.

After starting her third round of chemotherapy, Ms. Shouse’s insurance company, WellPoint, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, informed her that it would not continue to cover her latest treatment. It was, Ms. Shouse said, “A case of monopoly bureaucrats coming between a patient and her doctor.”

Medicare and Medicaid, which Ms. Shouse called great public programs, began paying half of the cost of her treatments. But Ms. Shouse was disappointed that in receive services, she had to be deemed completely disabled. It was another reason she championed health-care reform.

She became increasingly vocal, jumping even deeper into the health-care fray when her care – or lack thereof – became controversial.

“It was typical Melanie,” Hart said. “She would speak to anyone who would listen about health-care reform.”

In a speech at the Rally for the Future of Health Care under the Arch last November, Ms. Shouse proudly stood where President Obama had stood just a year earlier and called for passage of the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act, which, she said, would “mark a milestone in the long march toward full equality and true democracy for America, of a magnitude equal to passage of Social Security, worker’s rights and civil rights.”

She also spoke to individuals, like U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a vocal proponent of health-care reform legislation and a long-term survivor of ovarian cancer. Rep. DeLauro intervened with WellPoint on Ms. Shouse’s behalf, continuing her efforts to get treatments approved for Ms. Shouse through last week.

Their latest efforts failed, but Ms. Shouse left many inspired by her life and her work.

A Lasting Inspiration

“When Ms. Shouse joined our organization, she brought a wide breadth of knowledge about so many things,” said Barbara Finch, founder and president of Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice. “But mostly she added inspiration.”

 Bernice King Threadgill (left) said Shouse (right) was "selfless."

Berniece King Threadgill, a retired St. Louis Public Schools teacher and administrator, echoed that sentiment.

“Melanie would always send me an inspirational quote, something uplifting from one of her heroes, like Frederick Douglass or Thomas Jefferson,” Threadgill said.

“When she would ask me to go to an event, I’d think ‘if Melanie can go, knowing what she’s going through, I can go too’,” Threadgill continued. “She was selfless. I’ve got to fight harder now that she is gone.”

In addition to affordable health care, Ms. Shouse also fought for clean energy, organic farming, the environment, sustainable mass transit and economic reform.

“She felt passionately about working people and that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to run over them,” said Amy Smoucha, an organizer for St. Louis Area Jobs with Justice. “She really understood how her story was America’s story and she was very effective in telling that story. We are renewed in winning the health-care battle in her honor.”

In addition to being active with St. Louis Jobs with Justice and Women’s Voices, Ms. Shouse was a member of the Breast Cancer Research Working Group at Washington University/Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University’s Institutional Review Board for clinical trials, the Missouri Health Care for All Coalition and the Komen St. Louis Research Advocate Committee. She was a graduate of Project LEAD (National Breast Cancer Coalition) and she received a patient advocate scholarship (Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation) to the 2007 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

She was pursuing a Master’s Degree in Non-Profit Management at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The Final Rally

“She was a fierce and tireless advocate for the world she wanted to see,” Smoucha said.

Ms. Shouse was cremated, as requested, in her “North County for Obama” sweatshirt, and her ashes scattered at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

In addition to her partner in life and in business, survivors include her parents, Marianne and Carl Shouse of Prairie Village, Kan.; two sisters, Maria Duda of Tampa, Fla., and Michele Macready of Vancouver, British Columbia; and her grandmother, Kay Holtzman of Overland Park, Kan.

The rally in celebration of her life will be at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman Avenue.

The family suggests memorial contributions to Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice, 412 Greenleaf Drive, Kirkwood, Mo. 63122; Susan G. Komen for the Cure, St. Louis Affiliate, P.O. Box 790129, Dept. SK, St. Louis, Mo., 63179-0129, or St. Louis Area Jobs with Justice, 2725 Clifton Street, St. Louis, Mo. 63139.