9 Over 90: Anita Gorman

The elderly elite of Kansas City share their life journeys, what motivated them along the way, the lucky breaks and tough times, and advice for staying active and relevant in their later years.

Written by David Hodes
Interviewed by David M. Block, David Hodes and Pete Mundo

Anita Gorman

Birth date: November 17, 1930, Age: 93

“I think we all have to try to recognize that each one of us is put in this place, and we should try to make it a better place.”

When discussing the life and times of Anita Gorman, who is widely acknowledged as one of Kansas City’s greatest community leaders, it’s difficult to summarize her lifelong achievements in the limited allotted space here. Much of her work was behind the scenes, persuading and fundraising for various city projects. But her name is familiar to keen-eyed Kansas Citians because some of her work resulted in special recognition.

Gorman was the first woman appointed to the Kansas City Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners in 1979. She went on to serve as president of the board from 1986 to 1991. Her fundraising efforts resulted in millions of dollars for Starlight Theatre, where, in 2007, the Anita B. Gorman Court of Honor was created. 

Gorman also served on the Missouri Conservation Commission from 1993 to 2005 and was the first woman to chair the commission in 1996. The Missouri Department of Conservation Discovery Center in Kansas City is named after her, as is a hiking trail at Smithville Lake in honor of her restoration efforts.

Recognitions

The list of recognitions is extensive and impressive: 

Gorman was inducted into the Missouri Recreation and Parks Hall of Fame in 2015. She was honored with the Jay B. Dillingham Leadership Award for Northland Neighborhood Association in 2008; the Mid-America Regional Council Regional Leadership Award in 2002; the First Woman Award of Kansas City in 2000; the KCI/Northland Regional Chamber Leadership Award in 1996; a Missouri Parks and Recreation Association Citation for Outstanding State Park Commissioner in 1989; the Outstanding Citizen of Kansas City, Missouri, Communications Matrix Award in 1981; and the Missouri Municipal League Outstanding Citizen of Kansas City, Missouri, Award in 1983. 

There’s more, always more, with this nonstop nonagenarian who continues her philanthropic and community organizer ways even to this day.

Background

Gorman’s family were farmers in Palmyra, Missouri (near Hannibal), until World War II broke out. Most of their farm help was drafted, so the family moved to Kansas City in 1943. Gorman finished 7th and 8th grades here. Her father, Zack McPike, took a job as a mechanic with TWA. 

One of her fondest memories was meeting and later marrying Gerald Gorman, who she considers to be her personal hero. Gerald was the first Northlander to attend Harvard, graduating magna cum laude in 1956. He then went on to work in various law firms and as a civic leader in Kansas City. “I knew who I wanted to marry when I was 16 years old,” Anita says, “but I had to wait till I was 22 to get through school.” 

The two married in 1954 and had two daughters—Guinevere and Victoria. Gerald passed in 2016.

Getting Things Done

Anita Gorman felt lucky to live in a town where “you don’t have to be beautiful or handsome or wealthy or smart or rich,” she says. “If you’re willing to work, you can be on the team. That’s not true everywhere. But here in this town, anybody can be on a team. As a result of that, you can get things done.”

The most important thing is family, she says. “I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had good parents, a good husband, good children, good grandchildren and now good great-grandchildren. I’ve had a few friends who had no family, and that’s really sad.”

One of her first experiences raising money and helping change the status quo of a place occurred after Gerald finished at Harvard Law School and they moved into a house at 901 N.E. Vivion Road. “At the time, it was located on empty land,” she says. “We were told by the neighbors that it was said they were going to put a used car lot there. So we fought that off from 1958 to 1979. Finally, the city said if you raise the money to build a fountain, to be the first fountain north of the river in the city of fountains, we won’t allow the used car lot there. So that’s what we did.”

Gorman recalls the work on the Kansas City Zoo, which the Department of Agriculture threatened to close in the mid-1980s unless it got an upgrade. “We had quite a time with the park board because they hadn’t had an election in decades,” she says. “When you have an election, you have to have money to make it happen. And we were not doing very well. The city auditor at the time (Mark Funkhouser) was not a supporter. But Mayor Dick Berkley couldn’t have been more supportive.”

The board was losing ground because of what Funkhouser was putting out about the zoo, and he began to campaign against them. “We were really getting desperate,” she says. “The week before the election, a young woman that we never heard of gave us $100,000 and said, ‘Use this to get that zoo going and get that election won.’ She helped save the zoo.”

The vote came down in their favor. The zoo today has been ranked as one of the top 10 zoos in the country.

New Projects

Throughout her busy life, Gorman says that the most important thing for her is her belief in God. “He makes it possible for us to do things,” she says. “You have to help out people that need help. And sometimes you need help. You have to be aware of that.

“If you’re not out working, then you better do some physical working out,” she says. “We’ve been given a life. We’re supposed to do something to be proud of.”

Her ancestors didn’t have long lives, but she has beaten those odds. “I’m kind of a mystery,” she says, “but it makes me think there must be something I’m supposed to be doing that I haven’t gotten done yet.” 

So she recently got to work on a new project. “We have a facility called Miles for Smiles. There was a study made that there were lots of children that live north of the river that did not have good dental care. We managed to raise the money and get some help with that. As a result, we got this going.”

Miles for Smiles is a nonprofit organization based that provides free dental and vision care services to low-income children. What started out as services for one or two schools now applies to 30 schools in Platte and Clay counties. “They are to the point where they’ve got to be able to have more room. There is such a backlog where kids have to wait as long as six months to have work done on their teeth. That’s not acceptable.”

And just like everything she has worked on over her life, Anita takes the necessary action, pushes the right buttons to get the ball rolling. She had a mid-year meeting for fundraising for a new location for the dental work. “I can get some things started,” she says. 

“You have to help out people that need help. And sometimes you need help. You have to be aware of that.”

“If you’re willing to work, you can be on the team. That’s not true everywhere. But here in this town, anybody can be on a team. As a result of that, you can get things done.”

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