'St. Edith of the Minutiae' plans perfect garden

Edie Roberts basks on her porch Photo by Tim Schoon

After 17 years fussing over every last detail of her duties as advertising and exhibits manager at The University of Iowa Press, Edie Roberts looks forward to perfecting the particulars of her new position.

She’ll make sure every pesky weed is plucked from her immaculate flower garden and neatly groomed lawn.

Her straw hat will sit just so, to shade her newspaper from the glare of Iowa’s morning summer sun, as she sips her freshly brewed, ideal-temperature java.

Precisely planned vacations to Mexico will procure additions to an eclectic collection of colorful animal figurines.

That sounds like a fitting retirement for the woman called "St. Edith of the Minutiae."

Roberts earned the nickname based on the meticulous methods she used as a clerk IV designing University Press catalogs, ads, flyers and brochures, as well as organizing everything from presentations to office processes.

Her coworkers even commissioned a painting of a halo-wearing St. Edith by Paco Felici, an artist her department has worked with. They presented it to her at a retirement party in March.

Good-natured kidding aside, Roberts took her job and the department’s responsibility very seriously.

"The University Press brings material to the public that otherwise might not get published. To be able to spread that knowledge was always something we could be so proud of," says Roberts, who lives with her husband Don in their Iowa City home.

He retired in 1996 as the University’s manager of photographic services. He’s still coming to grips with the notion that he must now share his daytime routine and space with St. Edith.

"The luxury of doing whatever I want, whenever I want, is great. There has to be some advantage to being old, right?" Roberts jokes, rattling off a list of quilt projects to start and books to finish reading.

"It’s nice to get up in the morning and not have to be anywhere," she says. "I leisurely read, feed the birds, check my e-mail. And, if I want, I sit out here on the porch . . . and bask."

Article by Amy Schoon