Heidi Lopata Sherman, admired for her photographic artistry and passionate activism for her life-long love of dogs, died Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014 after years of struggling with multiple sclerosis.  She was 60 and was a resident of Kirkwood.

Mrs. Sherman was born in St. Louis on Jan. 24, 1954, one of three children of the late Monte and the late Carolyn (“Carrie”) Blumenfeld Lopata.  After graduating from Clayton High School, she attended Washington University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and photography.  She took post-graduate photography courses at the University of Texas in Dallas and Harvard University. She worked as a creative director at Emerson Electric, where she art directed and produced the firm’s annual report.

Mrs. Sherman’s photographic work has been exhibited in Europe and the United States, including a show at the Dallas Museum of Art. It also has been purchased by numerous private collectors and by several art museums, including the Art Museum of St. Louis.  She managed her career in fine art photography not only in St. Louis, but also while living in Dallas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

She was represented by galleries in New York City, Santa Fe, Dallas and Boston.

She became interested in Transcendental Meditation in 1970 and in 1972 was made a TM teacher, one of the youngest teachers of the worldwide TM movement.

In 1988, Mrs. Sherman married Allen Sherman, a retired advertising executive, and a former member of the St. Louis Jewish Light Board of Trustees.  For the next 15 years, she moved to wherever her husband’s career took them.  In Lancaster, Pa., she turned her life-long love of dogs into a company that chauffeured pets, becoming known as the “Pet Vet Taxi Lady.”  She was a member of the board of directors of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. She was also a founding member of the Friends of Photography of the Dallas Museum of Art and Forest Park Forever.

A memorial service for Mrs. Sherman was held Jan. 23 at the Berger Memorial Chapel, where Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman, emeritus of Congregation Shaare Emeth, officiated.   Stiffman noted, “She made so many friends through the years, from her school days to the present. She was respected by so many colleagues in business, by those firms that used her talents extensively and by those galleries throughout the world that exhibited her works.”

 Stiffman also praised how Mrs. Sherman persevered despite her illness of the past several years.  “Her illness was a difficult and ultimately devastating one.  She carried on as long as she was able.  (Her husband) Allen modified the house, bought a new accessible car, did everything to make it possible for her to live a full life.  She fought it with such strength, did as her physicians prescribed and moved even beyond that.  But a cure was not to be.”

In a statement Allen Sherman sent out after his wife’s passing, he said, “We will miss her energy, her infinite love and her desire to help us in any way that she could.  The doggies on earth will also feel her loss, for she loved them all.  Her divine spirit is on to new worlds and our sorrow will be balanced by the joy she will bring to another place.”

 In addition to her husband, Mrs. Sherman is survived by two brothers, Dr. Lee Lopata of Kansas City and Loren Lopata (Sandy) of San Diego; stepchildren David Sherman (Jamie) and Laura Simberg (Steve) and three step-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions preferred to MS Center of St. Louis, 1176 Town & Country Commons, Chesterfield, Mo. 63017 or Senior Dogs 4 Seniors, 1109 Babler Forest Court, Chesterfield, Mo. 63005.