Louise Mikesell-Wireman

1953 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Louise Mikesell-Wireman, who became an ambassador for fresh produce grown locally as executive director of the Toledo Farmers' Market and in marketing with a nonprofit food technology center, died Nov. 1 in her West Toledo home. She was 70.

She had congestive heart failure, said her close friend Linda Barker.

Ms. Mikesell-Wireman closed her career about a decade ago as a marketing specialist for the Center for Innovative Food Technology, promoting farmers and farm goods across northwest Ohio.

She became director of the farmers' market in Toledo's Warehouse District in 1994. She took the helm as the market, formerly city operated, came under the control of a cooperative of growers. At every opportunity, she promoted the seasonal offerings of the market - to Blade reporters and in broadcast appearances. She became a regular on a popular Saturday morning television program.

"The Farmers' Market of Toledo is a bright, busy place, where people of all walks of life come to buy locally grown, lovingly picked produce," she wrote to The Blade Readers' Forum in August, 1996. Shoppers were sure to find that the market had better prices - and fresher goods - than grocery stores.

"I know who grew it and that it was picked this week and didn't sit around in crates," she wrote.

She promoted a program, coordinated by the Area Office on Aging of Northwestern Ohio, in which low-income senior citizens received federal vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetables. Ms. Mikesell-Wireman in 2001 said increased business from the voucher program led to farmers setting up stands on weekdays for the first time in several years.

Her own history with the market began at age 4, when she accompanied her father, Kenneth, on his weekly shopping trips. She learned a lesson in retail sales as well.

"He would send us kids out in the neighborhood with a little wagon to sell tomatoes, two for a nickel," she told The Blade in 1994.

Mrs. Barker said: "She was really thrilled to have anything to do with the market. She did a lot with gleaning [for] the homeless and having the farm-to-chef-to-table idea years before it went big."

Former Blade food editor Mary Alice Powell, writing about the market in a 1999 column, informed readers that Ms. Mikesell-Wireman was easily identified by "her large straw hat laden with vegetables and a broad smile that denotes pride in the growth of the market. The hat has become her trademark; she even wears it during cooking demonstrations on television."

With ease of preparation in mind, Ms. Mikesell-Wireman in the late 1990s collected recipes from family and friends, even her own, into a cookbook, Lunch with Louise and Other Dishes.

The cookbook was among 150 - all published in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan - that Miss Powell donated about three years ago to the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University.

In a 2020 column, Miss Powell said the cookbook, as expected, included recipes using seasonal produce. She also quoted Ms. Mikesell-Wireman's introduction as testimony to what many recipe collectors intend to accomplish.

"I have been putting together all sorts of neat recipes over the years, and finally decided this was the time to put a cookbook together," Ms. Mikesell-Wireman wrote.

She resigned from the farmers' market in July, 2002. Afterward, she served for three years as manager of the farmers' market in Ann Arbor.

She traveled across northwest Ohio as a market specialist for the Center for Innovative Food Technology from 2007-12. Most recently, she helped at Sew N Such, a tailoring and altering company run by her sister, Mary Cianci.

She was born Aug. 28, 1953, to Carolyn and Kenneth Mikesell. She grew up in West Toledo and was a 1971 graduate of Start High School.

She received an associate degree in retail business from the University of Toledo. She returned to UT and later received a bachelor's degree in business and marketing.

For more than a decade, she was owner of Sunshine Florist in West Toledo, and she traveled widely to learn the fine points of floral design and the business.

"She was very good with customers and interactions, and she was compassionate with people," said Alice Caniglia, former owner of a florist shop in Hudson, Ohio, who met Ms. Mikesell-Wireman 40 years ago at a floral seminar in Vienna. Her artistic side extended to the calendars and note cards she created in watercolors for friends.

"She was always interested in so many things and was willing to go at the drop of a hat," Ms. Caniglia said.

Pete Caro, a friend for nearly 50 years, said: "She was so creative and so much fun.

"She had the nature of being able to enjoy life to the fullest," he said. "Every time she would invest in a project, she would go in full bore. She believed she was put on this earth to give to others."

She was known for inviting neighbors to her table and for taking in cats that lacked shelter.

Her husband, Michael Wireman, died Feb. 27, 2021.

Surviving is her sister, Mary Cianci.

A memorial service will be held in spring.

Tributes are suggested to Humane Ohio, the SeaGate Food Bank, or a charity of the donor's choice.