Patty Rouse: Memories of Columbia & Jim

Patty Rouse sits in a small windowless office, her shelves are stocked with binders and files, her desk is piled high with papers.

"I've never had a paid job, I've always been a volunteer. I'm a volunteer here, I'm not on the payroll here," she says as she surveys the room of her Enterprise office. The pale blue walls are littered with plaques and pictures.

Her office will become the archives she says, once she gets all the files organized. At 83, she comes to work and work she does. Everywhere I look are stacks of files, even the chairs are occupied by files. "I'm trying to get this office organized to the point that they can understand whats in what pile and I've got a list of what's in the different drawers."

"Jim retired from the Rouse Company but he wasn't finished working. And he wanted to do something else and he had been inspired by what a group in Washington was doing with low income housing. He really got organizing in 79 and we got started in 80."

The goal of the new company was "to see that all low income people in the United States get the opportunity, you don't give them the housing you give them the opportunity to get the housing and to see that all low income people in the United States, not worldwide but in the United States get the opportunity to get into affordable housing."

I was surprised to learn that Enterprise takes up the majority of the American City building with the exception of the ground floor.

Rouse was born and raised in Norfolk, Va. There she met Jim in 1973, a year later they were married. They used to play tennis together in those years and Rouse comments that Jim did all of the cooking, she did the dishes. She spent her free time potting but she never made dishes, she says she was never that good.

35 years later, Rouse has had a parkway named after her and her husband. She likes the convenience and closeness of Columbia. She jokes that her old while station wagon only has about 70,000 miles on it because everything is close by. People often ask her why she never moved home after Jim died. She smiles and says that Columbia is her home and that's why she's stayed.