By By ERIN VER BERKMOES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Columnist and veteran memorial activist named citizen of the year.
Longtime Niles resident Lou Liebetrau is being given this honor by the Niles Elks.
Liebetrau will be recognized at the installation of officers for the Elks, but a date for the event hasn't been determined.
Liebetrau has lived in the area since 1946. She moved here from South Bend, Ind. after she married her husband William Liebetrau. They have seven children, 22 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
Liebetrau was instrumental in the creation of the veterans memorial here in Niles.
When she was a young girl living in South Bend, there was a boy who was some years older than her who lived down the street.
Being that there was a war going on, when the neighbor boy became of age he was drafted and went off to the war. A short time after he went away the news came that he had been killed in the line of duty.
Liebetrau's husband was a WWII vet and her father-in-law was a veteran of WWI, thus the thought of war has been on her mind for quite some time.
When she moved to Niles after she got married, she asked her husband if Niles had any sort of veterans memorial, and he told her that even though he had lived here for most of his life, he was unsure of that.
She went looking all over the city for a memorial of any type and never found one. "I really had no intention of starting one, I thought that someone who is really from here would start one," Liebetrau said.
After many years of not really doing anything with her idea and thinking that someone else from the community would do something about this she finally acted. In 2001, she sent a letter to the paper, asking why there wasn't a memorial and why someone didn't start one.
She ended up heading the committee of about 18-20 people, who like her had the faith to fight for this memorial.
The memorial was finally dedicated in Nov. 7 of last year after some three years of planning and construction. Liebetrau couldn't be happier.
Another thing that keeps Liebetrau's time occupied is the column she writes for the Niles Daily Star, titled Culinary Conversation, which is about way more than food. She adds tidbits about the history of Niles, inspirational messages and always a bit of humor.
Liebetrau says that people really respond to what she writes, and that the comments she gets are wonderful. She receives all sorts of helpful tips and recipes from the readers of the Niles Daily Star and she tries to please the public the best she can with what she puts in the it every week.
Liebetrau loves living in the town of Niles. "This is a great place to live, everyone here is so wonderful and they are so compassionate and caring," she added.
Liebetrau remembers going to all the different stores, such as shoe stores, the old Paris candy shop, Montgomery Wards department store and many others, that were downtown at that time. She loved talking to the business owners and being able to buy things right here in town and just the feeling the downtown area gave her.