Partner profile: Bob Fuessle

Gift for ovarian cancer research memorializes beloved wife and dedicated advocate

This past spring – perhaps motivated by the green-is-gold possibility of the season and surely inspired by poetry – Bob Fuessle decided to turn his love for his late wife, Paula, into a lasting tribute. To help fight the disease that took Paula’s life, he made a commitment to endow the Paula Emons-Fuessle Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, which will support ovarian cancer research at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

The gift will be paid in part during Bob’s lifetime and completed with a bequest through his will. The gift’s structure will enable Bob to witness the impact of his philanthropy firsthand while ensuring Paula’s memory continues to ripple forward into the lives of future patients facing the condition she bore so gracefully. As Bob says, “It’s not just about Paula; it’s about the women yet to come.”

Paula and Bob, a retired professor of environmental engineering at Bradley University, shared a love of poetry. Avid naturalists, they gravitated toward poets who observed the world closely, discerning beauty in nature’s bittersweet pattern of dormancy and renewal. Among their favorites was Robert Frost. They memorized many of his poems, including “Hyla Brook,” which traces the life of a small stream — boisterous throughout the jewel-weed spring then fading with the hot, dry days of July.

In the years since Paula’s death in 2021, Bob has come to recognize even more keenly the generative power of poetry to renew endlessly, like the stream in “Hyla Brook.” By establishing the ovarian cancer research fund, Bob has created his own cycle of remembrance, a living poem for Paula, who was passionate about advancing ovarian cancer research.

Bob recalls the morning that passion took root. “I was working at the kitchen sink, and Paula had her back to me,” he says. “She was reading the newspaper as she did every morning, and she suddenly started to cry. She said, ‘I’m reading a front-page article about cancer research that is underfunded.’” Ovarian cancer research was mentioned.

“Soon after that episode,” adds Bob, “Paula committed herself to raising money for research to help women like her.”

Reflecting on the impact of such philanthropy, Dineo Khabele, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at WashU Medicine, says, “The most meaningful advances in women’s health often begin with visionary donors who believe in the power of research. Their support enables us to explore promising treatments, improve early detection, and bring better outcomes to patients who urgently need them.”

Through her own research, Khabele is making progress in the fight against ovarian cancer. She and her team have identified novel drug combinations that are being advanced into early-phase clinical trials for women whose cancer has become unresponsive to chemotherapy. Innovations such as this led Bob and Paula to Siteman more than six years ago.

They became aware of the world-class research underway at the cancer center during Paula’s treatment in Springfield, Illinois, about an hour from their home near Peoria, Illinois. As Paula’s condition progressed, they were determined to receive the best care. At the recommendation of her Springfield oncologist, Paula began traveling to Siteman in St. Louis. She quickly became an advocate for the center’s exceptional research efforts.

A well-known teacher and designer in the knitting world, Paula used her popular “Knitting Pipeline” podcast to raise awareness and funds for ovarian cancer research at Siteman. Together, she and Bob — and eventually far-flung friends and family — made it their mission to ensure that more women would benefit from the kinds of discoveries Siteman was pursuing. They provided spendable support for research and, after Paula’s death, established a fund in her honor.

When asked what motivated his latest gift, Bob pauses to consider the sense of responsibility he feels for other ovarian cancer patients, rooted in his 47-year marriage to Paula and strengthened through her illness.

“Frost has another well-known poem, ‘The Road Not Taken,’ and that’s a motivation,” he says. “There’s a lot of giving in other areas of cancer research and rightfully so. But this cancer is underfunded. And that drives me, because it is so needed.”

By Grizelda McClelland, PhD ’12