History and heritage weren’t just armchair interests for Margaret Colf Hepola. Hepola’s 97 years included some transformative chapters of Southwest Washington history, and she wanted younger generations to know what came before them.
Hepola died Saturday after a life of philanthropy and civic leadership that earned her community recognition well into her 80s and 90s.
“She is what you think of as a catalyst,” said Rick Smithrud, executive director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library Foundation. “She was not only a visionary, but she could bring a lot of people together.”
Smithrud said he saw that in one of Hepola’s most visible legacies: the La Center Community Library.
In addition to creating a library, the project also involved local history. The building that now houses the library had been built a century earlier as a hospital, and was slated to be burned in a fire department training exercise.
“She started with the spark of an idea,” he said. “She wanted to save the La Center hospital building, then turn it into something that could be a centerpiece for the community.
“The library was a place that was needed to bring in people of all ages. She put those two ideas together and brought people together,” Smithrud said. “You fed off her passion and her positive attitude.”
The Colf Family Foundation also provided resources for the project, which included moving the two-story building about half a mile. Bob Colf, who runs a construction company, helped organize that move. He also pointed out another side of his mother’s life.
“She was the company bookkeeper until she was 88 years old,” he said.
“Margaret supported numerous heritage organizations,” said Susan Tissot, former executive director of the Clark County Historical Society.
The family’s suggestions for making donations in Hepola’s memory include many of those organizations: the Clark County Historical Museum, the Cowlitz County Historical Museum, the North Clark County Historical Museum, the La Center Historical Museum and the Woodland Historical Museum Society.
Hepola also was part of the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens organization in Woodland and helped save Woodland’s Cedar Creek Grist Mill.
“She was very concerned about people knowing their history,” said Tissot, who moved to California in May after 10½ years heading the downtown Vancouver museum.
“When I first took over, she funded a consultant to get a handle on the collection and help get us organized,” Tissot said. “The Margaret Colf Hepola Heritage Award at the museum is named for her, and she was the first winner” in 2006.
In 2012, Hepola received a Lifetime of Giving Award from the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.
Graveside services will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Hayes Cemetery, about 3 miles east of Woodland on Hayes Road. A celebration of Hepola’s life will be at 11 a.m. Friday at First Church of God, 3300 N.E,. 78th St., Vancouver; it will be followed by a 1 p.m. reception at Summit Grove Lodge, 30810 N.E. Timmen Road, Ridgefield.
