Ann Arbors Linda Diane Feldt remembered as resident advocate of the highest order – mlive.com

ANN ARBOR, MI Linda Diane Feldt, a longtime Ann Arbor pedestrian safety and cycling advocate and holistic health practitioner, has died.

She was 62.

City officials, friends and many who knew her as a friendly face and force around town are sharing remembrances of the Keppler Court resident who wore many hats, including chairing the citys Transportation Commission.

She was a resident advocate of the highest order, a person who saw a leadership/policy gap in our community and was able to effect systemic change, Mayor Christopher Taylor said in a statement. She organized tirelessly with others to initiate and work the Pedestrian Safety Task Force, envision and implement the Transportation Commission, and was the plain and obvious choice to chair both. If you walk or cycle in Ann Arbor, you owe her no small measure of your safety and your full thanks.

Feldt exemplified kindness, action and care for others, Taylor said, expressing condolences to her family and loved ones.

She will be truly missed by all who had the good fortune to know her, he said.

An Ann Arbor native and 1976 graduate of Community High School, Feldt began studying holistic health care during her high school days and studied anthropology and sociology at the University of Michigan. She was a program coordinator at Ozone House before becoming a holistic health practitioner and taught health classes at Rudolf Steiner School and UM.

She was a board member for various organizations, including three terms as president of the Peoples Food Co-Op, volunteered as a crisis counselor and trainer, and worked in the field on environmental projects, including as a volunteer with the Huron River Watershed Council.

She also was a community blogger for AnnArbor.com, writing about foraging, wild foods and herbal medicine.

Her website, LindaDianeFeldt.com, features six publications she wrote over the years, including Wildcrafting Recipes: Loving and Eating Wild Foods and Spinach and Beyond: Loving Life and Dark Green Leafy Vegetables. She was once called the doyenne of alternative healing by the Ann Arbor Observer and a notable in the field by Massage Magazine.

Feldt, who was open about her battle with health issues in recent years, including heart problems, died Wednesday night, Nov. 17. She is survived by her husband, Richard Conto.

She was so desperately sick for so long, said Patricia Anderson, a friend who said Feldt was clinically diagnosed with long COVID based on her symptoms last year.

Anderson, who got to know Feldt several years ago through the A2B3 (Ann Arbor Bi Bim Bop) lunch group, said she and Feldt swapped tips and tricks about herbal remedies and she took one of Feldts workshops. After seeing the outpouring of remembrances on social media, shes realizing Feldt meant a lot to many people.

She was just so special to so many people and she had so much influence on our town, Anderson said. She was really one of those people who really put into practice think globally, act locally. I mean, she lived it.

Through her transportation advocacy, Feldt pushed for a fundamental shift in the citys car culture, calling for lowering speeds on streets, getting more people commuting without using cars and updating pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and laws.

Studies show that even when you slow down cars, it doesnt add much to the travel time, and most of us will agree thats worth saving a life or two or more, Feldt said when she spoke at a forum at the downtown library in February 2020.

Conto said he and Feldt married late in life, so he didnt get to see all of her accomplishments as they happened.

But her accomplishments were enormous for the community and for the individual, he said, adding she helped start Ozone House and was involved in managing it as a teenager. Shes been involved in physical therapy and helping people heal almost her whole life, from high school at Community High until just days before she died when she saw babies and helped them recover from the trauma of birth.

Her father was a UM urban planning professor and her mother was a research scientist and Feldt combined what she learned from both, Conto said. And while she never had children of her own, she had several dogs over the years and particularly loved Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

Up until the very end, she was looking to improve the world by integrating all of her skills, Conto said.

She wanted to improve the diagnosis of heart disease, of heart attacks in women, because what she saw ... pointed out how poorly women are diagnosed, he said. That was a project she was working on even as she was suffering heart attacks herself.

Anderson said Feldt was at last weeks A2B3 virtual meetup despite having just gotten out of the cardiac hospital.

We were chatting and stuff and she sort of inserted herself into the conversation. She goes, Well, I win the award for the most devoted attendee of A2B3, " Anderson recalled.

We were all like, We are not going to argue with you on that one. You do, you win. And she was saying, I just really wanted to be here and it just mattered so much to me to be here and its just so great to see you guys. "

Anderson said Feldt had a common phase she left with the group: Take nothing for granted.

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Ann Arbors Linda Diane Feldt remembered as resident advocate of the highest order - mlive.com