Patricia Avery would be the last person to boast about her accomplishments.
In Iowa, she helped start a community center, domestic violence centers and food shelves and served as the human rights commissioner for Fort Dodge and the Iowa lieutenant governor's task force on diversity. When she moved to Minnesota, she played a key role in developing several human service and human resources programs for Hennepin County.
"She was an unadulterated truth teller," said her son, Michael Avery, of Des Moines, Iowa. "She made people feel comfortable using resources and would take those services to the people."
Avery, 69, was still serving as Hennepin County's senior department administrator in the Department of Health and Human Services when she died Jan. 3 of natural causes at her home in Brooklyn Park.
"She was a teacher, a partner and a leader," said Jodi Wentland, the deputy county administrator of human services. "She believed in people. She helped you discover your strengths and your dreams."
Avery was born in Lake Village, Ark., where her family worked as sharecroppers in the cotton fields. She was vice president of her high school and married the president. She became a single parent and moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa. Her son recalled that they were very poor and didn't have a lot of indoor plumbing.
"She learned firsthand about the difficulties poor people can face in the system," he said.
Avery graduated with honors with a psychology degree from Iowa State and started to teach high school in the early 1980s, She helped develop programs to combat truancy and create alternative education programs. She later received a master's degree from Drake University.
