Margot Imdike Klos’ influence is everywhere.
It’s reflected in the curb cuts, the walkways next to handicapped parking spaces and the size of handicapped restroom stalls. It’s reflected in the seating arrangements and Braille signs at Target Field, the entrances and ramps at the State Capitol and the paved walkways at Gooseberry Falls State Park and William O’Brien State Park.
“Margot changed thousands of people’s lives,” said Sharon Van Winkel, who met Imdiek Cross in the women’s wheelchair basketball league in 1975. She watched Margot grow from teaching teammates how to do wheelies and get into hotel rooms at a time when access was nearly nonexistent, to a “driving force” pushing contractors and state lawmakers to make infrastructure and policies more equitable.
She died of cancer on July 21 after spending decades championing disability rights and fighting to make the country a more accessible place. She was 68 years old.
Imdiek Cross was one of eight children who grew up on a dairy farm in Sauk Centre. As a child, she sustained spinal cord injuries in an accident. Her brother, Tim Imdiek, said she was “strong-willed” and improvised solutions to get by on the farm. Even after moving to the Twin Cities to attend the University of Minnesota, Imdiek said she continued to struggle with transportation issues, including having to climb flights of stairs to get to the city bus.
“Her life is hers [belief that] “Something has to change,” Imdiek said. “Something has to happen here. This is wrong. She was just passionate about making things accessible.”
Friends and former colleagues described her as tough, determined and stubborn – fearless and intimidating, yet also fun-loving and compassionate.
“Everybody talks about how intense she was, but she was also very sweet and very understanding,” said Greg Rice, founder of Wilderness Inquiry, a nonprofit that aims to open the outdoors to everyone. Rice said a trip to Imdeek Cross and the Boundary Waters during his college years was “life-changing.”
Frustrated at being carried across one portage “like a sack of potatoes,” Rice said, Imdiek Cross crawled from one end of the portage to the other, dragging his wheelchair along the way. The trip, he said, “brought awareness to the fact that people with disabilities can do whatever they want, anywhere, even in the wilderness.”
Imdeek Cross was there when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990. She did more to promote and implement the law than any other Minnesotan, said Sen. John Marty, D-Roseville.
Murthy said he sought to improve the lives of people with all kinds of disabilities, including mobility impairments, sensory impairments, hearing impairments, visual impairments and mental illnesses.
“I can’t think of anyone in Minnesota who has done more for accessibility than she has,” he said. “She just cared about people.”
Imdiek Cross spent the majority of her career, about 35 years, serving on the Minnesota Council on Disabilities and also served on various committees and commissions.
Wiltshire said that when she was the state’s accessibility specialist and Joan Wiltshire was the council’s clerk, they played “good cop, bad cop” with lawmakers and construction companies. Wiltshire said Imdeek Kloss enjoyed playing the bad cop role. Kloss liked to warn people “not to let Margot be sent there.”
“She could make grown men in charge of building codes not just cry, but actually sob,” Wiltshire said. “She knew the building codes inside out.”
Imdiek Cross was mentored by the council’s ADA director, David Fenley, who said Cross’s approach was “if we’re not making people angry, then we’re not doing our job, because we should be demanding change and demanding more rights.”
Fenley said she has worked on nearly every major sports construction project in Minnesota over the past 20 years, from Allianz Field to U.S. Bank Stadium, and that she was a frequent consultant on the design of Target Field, which is widely known as one of the most accessible stadiums in the nation.
She was also eager to take on personal needs and complaints, such as making a call about a handicapped parking space that hadn’t been plowed or arranging for a friend to bring her service animal to Guthrie, Van Winkel said.
Over the decades, she has earned a place in the disability community where she is known by her first name, friends and colleagues say.
“Elvis, Beyonce, Cher, Margot … you just say their names and people know who you’re talking about,” Van Winkel said.
Though she was known as a tireless advocate for disability rights, friends also described her as a feminist who loved her husband, Stuart Cross, and enjoyed going out to restaurants, listening to music, being outdoors and laughing with friends. She is survived by her husband, who lives in Minneapolis, six siblings, and many nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at Banquets of Minnesota in Fridley on August 7th from 10am to 3pm.
Marty, who gave the eulogy, said he spoke with her just a few weeks before her death, in which she lamented that there was still much struggle ahead for accessibility and urged others to “keep up the fight.”
In the program for the celebration, Imdeek Kross wrote a farewell speech, adding an apology to those he had offended along the way: “Unless you got what you deserve!”
“Passion sometimes ignores courtesy,” she wrote. “Thank you again for your love, support and friendship. I hope to see you again in a place where the slope is gentler, translations plentiful and access is universal.”