In June 1996, Humble Blogger, my mom Mary (Bauman) Kubiatowicz and my Loving wife Rose packed up the 1994 Toyota Camry and headed south to Iowa to visit the Bridges of Madison County and the Humboldt, IA area where mom was born. Mom wanted to re-visit memories of her life there as a child. Also, since Loving Wife Rose was something of a genealogist and had already written a book of her family's past, we were now working on mom's Bauman family history which included Frank Gotch, the famous wrestler. I gave mom a a mini-cassette recorder to record her thoughts as we drove along and made our various stops. She was familiar with the concept because she and her sisters exchanged audio tapes in the 1960's to keep up on family news. Mom lived in Minnesota, Wynn was in north Washington state and Marge lived in California. Mom recorded quite a nice narration during our trip. I later made her Humboldt Iowa recording into an mp3 file.
Humble Blogger with Mom at Hogback Bridge in Winterset, IA June 1996
After we returned home, I told mom to keep the small tape recorder and (if she felt motivated to do so) record any additional stories about her childhood or her life as they came to mind.
Mom died August 19, 2004 at age 86, There were quite a few trips to the Mayo Clinic and St. Mary and Methodist hospitals before that. My brother Jim, his wife Judy and Rose and I made many trips to Rochester from the Twin Cities to attend to mom. She was our last parent and it was sad to suddenly become an "orphan"
I had the time, so I was responsible for clearing our her condominium in Rochester. On one of the end tables, I found the tape recorder I had given her in 1996. She must have placed it where I could find it. I hadn't seen it on other visits. There was a full cassette in the machine but the battery compartment had two badly corroded batteries in it. I suspected the worst. Once at home I played the cassette in another machine but heard nothing. I was disappointed because I would miss listening to her voice tell stories I had not heard before! But I understood. She was a private person and had gone through a lot of challenges in her life. Those stories, she must have thought, would be better untold.
Mom at age 19 after winning the "Miss Southern Minnesota" Beauty Contest in 1937 . The Trophy Cup that she is holding is generic for the photo shoot. The inscribed one given to her later is shown below.
The Trophy Cup consists of silver plate over base metal with a Bakelite base. It has developed a dark patina over its 74 years (1937-2011) and has dents and areas where silver plate is missing
The Trophy Cup was made by Josten's in Owatonna. Its brass tag numbered C15B is located on the inside of the Bakelite base. The screw through the middle of the tag holds the cup to the base.
The Kitchen Crew: Mom next to older brother Mike on left, younger brother Jim and Humble Blogger on Easter 4/4/1999. Mike died at a young age of 62 in May 2003
Humble Blogger, now orphaned and cleaning out Mom's Rochester, MN Condo in September 2004, sits alone at the counter making notes in his 139th Journal. Mom often Sat in the same place working Crossword Puzzles while watching the Bill O'Reilly show on the Fox TV network. This was a sad day for the Blogger
