Curtis Cole: Planting the Seeds for Student Success

Childhood friends when growing up in Bakersfield, California, Curtis Cole and Margaret Reischman dated through their student years at Garces Memorial High School. After graduation they drifted apart, each choosing a different path. Margaret enrolled as a student at Dominican (’55) but left to marry after completing her second year. Curtis graduated from Santa Clara University with a law degree and was admitted to the California Bar in 1958. He married while in law school.

In the years that followed, Curtis, one of the first certified specialists in California worker’s compensation law, built a successful law firm—Cole, Fisher, Bosquez-Flores & Cole & Keefe. Specializing in worker's compensation and Social Security cases, the firm grew into the largest worker’s compensation practice in central California. As Curtis explains, “At the time, no one wanted to handle worker’s comp; it didn’t pay enough. So, I would keep getting the cases that no one else wanted to handle. When it began to pay well, I had most of it.”

After Margaret's husband passed away and Curtis's marriage had also ended, they were reunited. They married in 1977 (between them they had 11 children, five from her marriage and six from his) and enjoyed 20 years of marriage until Margaret passed away in 1997.

As a tribute to Margaret, who supported Dominican for many years and whose sister Helen (Reischman) Haller ’61, was also a Dominican alumna, Curtis established a memorial garden on the Dominican campus in 1999. He also provided an endowment for its maintenance over the years. The Margaret Reischman Schimandle Cole Memorial Garden today provides a place of peace, respite, and quiet study and reflection.

Cole Memorial Garden

Going a step further, Curtis has also included Dominican as a charitable beneficiary of his trust—specifying a percentage of the remainder to fund the Margaret Reischman Schimandle Cole Scholarship Endowment.

Curtis remarried after Margaret’s death, and he and his current wife Joyce share a deep commitment to the power of education to make a difference in the lives of individuals and society. The further education by members of the Cole family illustrates that commitment very well. Ten of the Cole’s 11 children went on to pursue higher education degrees, and many went on for post graduate work. Education, Curtis explains, is among their top priorities as philanthropists, volunteers, and a family.