It doesn't take long to notice Isabel Ann Reichert Vandervelde's impact on Aiken; just take a walk through downtown Aiken's The Alley and her work is there scrawled on the wall of the Aiken Brewing Co.
Vandervelde died Friday, but residents, including regular Aiken Standard columnist Whit Gibbons, are remembering her as a "tremendous asset" of this small town.
Vandervelde grew up in South Dakota, attending South Dakota State University. There, she married late husband Vance D. Vandervelde and had three children.
The couple moved to Aiken in 1954, after Vandervelde's husband was hired by DuPont at the Savannah River Site, and had three more children. She decided after that to go back to college, graduating with a summa cum laude honor, the highest honor an individual can receive, in creative writing from the University of South Carolina.
Gibbons first met Vandervelde in the mid-1970s after he joined the Aiken Writers Group.
"She was just sort of the cornerstone of the whole group," Gibbons said. "She knew how to write and talk about writing, and she know how to be a critic, not in a negative way. She was great."
Vandervelde wrote more than 10 novels, which included "Aiken County: The Only South Carolina County Founded During Reconstruction" and "The Battle of Aiken." Some of her work was published in the University of South Dakota's poetry magazine and in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
"I write for fun," Vandervelde said in an August 2013 Aiken Standard article. But, "if you are going to write real stuff, you are going to write history."
"She was active for so many years, and of course she wasn't just a writer but also an artist in terms of portrait paintings and drawings," Gibbons said.
Vandervelde was also very much involved in theater in Aiken, singing in musicals and playing various characters; she also taught creative writing classes at the Aiken Center for the Arts and art classes at the Aiken Day School, Mead Hall Elementary and Saint Angel's Academy.
"She would never hold back on her critique of something," Gibbons said in respect to a memory that stood out to him the most. "I wrote something once; she didn't think it was that good, and she was right and she told me. ... She was a tremendous asset to the community and made many, many contributions."
For further notice of funeral arrangements, visit her son, Greg Vandervelde's Facebook page, on.fb.me/19AWMeT.
Vandervelde is survived by children: Martin A. Vandervelde, Steve B. Vandervelde, Rose C. Dickerson (Pat), Paul D. Vandervelde (Vicki), John E. Vandervelde and Greg Vandervelde (Pamela); grandchildren: Jack Kirven, Sanna K. Cowie (Chris), Matthew McAllister, Ea Schwarz (Michael), Chrisltyn McAllister (Erik), Nathaniel Dickson, Dorothy "Annie" Dickson Vandervelde, Robert McAllister, Amelia Rose McAllister, Frances L. Dickson Vandervelde, John Allen McAllister; and four great-grandchildren: Harrison Norman, Bridget Shealey, Amelia Schwarz and Diana Schwarz.
Maayan Schechter is the local government reporter with Aiken Standard. Follow her on Twitter @MaayanSchechter.