Funeral services for Evelyn Shirley Perlmutter, 87, of East Moline, IL, will be 11:00AM Wednesday at the Van Hoe Funeral Home Ltd. East Moline, IL. Burial will be in National Cemetery, Rock Island, IL. Visitation will be 2 hours prior to services at the funeral home. Mrs. Perlmutter died Saturday, October 22, 2005 at home. Mrs. Perlmutter has been known for many years as a passionate, caring community leader who gave nearly a half-century of public service. One of the many legacies she leaves behind is Illini Hospital. Starting with a study for the East Moline Women's Club to determine whether a hospital was needed in the area, she spearheaded acquisition of the land and construction of a 150-bed institution to serve the East end of the Illinois Quad Cities. Former hospital administrator Gary Larson, once said, "If it hadn't been for Evelyn Perlmutter, there never would have been an Illini Hospital." She was also responsible for Black Hawk's public television station, WQPT. With her late husband, Dr. Harold Perlmutter, who performed the first surgery at Illini and was one of the founders of Black Hawk College, she helped build a new Restorative Care center at Illini as well as the Crosstown Residential Living Center there, and later the state-of-the-art Perlmutter Library of the Health Sciences, which provides a reference resource for physicians. The Perlmutters also gave the hospital the Work Place, the first occupational therapy center in the Quad cities. After Dr. Perlmutter's retirement, they donated his office building to the hospital foundation, and they continued to provide scholarship funds to the college. Mrs. Perlmutter has held seven presidencies of local organizations: Woman's Club of East Moline, Temple Emanual Sisterhood, the Tri-City chapter of Hadassah, the Illini Hospital Auxiliary, the Rock Island County Medical Society Auxiliary, the Rock Island County Federation of Women's Clubs, and Friends of 24 (Channel 24, WQPT). She served for ten years on the Illini board of directors, and was on the original advisory committee for Black Hawk College's two-year nursing program. She credited the East Moline Women's Club for giving her the training in parliamentary procedures and in organizational skills necessary to launch community projects. She once explained her numerous and varied works by saying, "I get involved in a project and when it's done, go on to something else. When there are good people to follow, that's great." In 1969 the Chamber of Commerce broke its precedent of presenting "Man of the Year" awards to name her "Woman of the Year." In 1994 the city of East Moline gave the Perlmutters a plaque and a key to the city after they won the Illinois Treasurer Award from the Illinois Alliance for the Aging. In their work on civic projects the Perlmutters sometimes had what she called a "friendly rivalry." She said, "Harold would tease me that Black Hawk would be built before Illini. Both she and her husband felt strongly that they had a responsibility to give back to the community that had welcomed them in 1950 as young professionals just beginning to build their family, their work and their lives together. A native of Cleveland, Mrs. Perlmutter worked at Wright Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio. During World War II, she joined the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. She met her husband when she was completing her training as a student nurse at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, where he worked as a surgeon. They were married in Denver in 1948, and then moved to Moline two years later when she was pregnant with her first child. She was an avid reader, and loved golfing. Survivors include: her daughter, Sandi Perlmutter, New York City, N.Y.; son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Jack and Beth Perlmutter, Glencoe, Illinois; grandchildren, Zachary, Isaac and Joshua; and sister Dr. Ruth Bolletino, New York, N.Y. While burial will be in National Cemetery, Arsenal Island, with her husband, she herself will receive full military honors as a former member of the military forces. Donations may be made to Black Hawk College. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.vanhoe.com