Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter)

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will include from the same year:

• images of watercolors painted by Mother (Marion A. Gunderson), and
• the Rolfe, Iowa, school yearbook. (Scroll down quite a ways to get to the yearbook.)

To look for Rolfe yearbooks by decade, you may go to this blog’s home page and, in the column at the right, click on one of the yearbook decade links (e.g., “1940s”). So far there are only two yearbooks posted at this blog, the other one being 1966-67.

I don’t know how soon I’ll post another watercolor/yearbook combination. By the time of Rolfe’s 2013 sesquicentennial, I hope to post every Rolfe school yearbook to which I have access, at least through the ’70s. Time to scan and public interest will be telling factors.

If you know of any Rolfe school yearbook(s) looking for a home, please check with Penny at the Rolfe Public Library to see if any are needed/wanted (712-848-3143). Or check with me to see if I need any for scanning and returning … or keeping if a return is not desired (mariongundersonart@gmail.com).

On a similar note, if you or someone you know has a watercolor painted by Mother, if you’d make me aware of it, I’d appreciate it. I might ask for a snapshot, or maybe even to make prints. I never ask to keep a painting, although twice that has been offered, for which many of my family members are thrilled.

It’s no secret that I have a passion for promoting prints of Mother’s watercolors, with the profits going to the Rolfe Public Library. I also am passionate about promoting Rolfe, in general.

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The Year of Watercolors: 1949

The Rolfe School Yearbook (scroll down): 1948-1949

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You may read about Clara’s, my oldest sister, discovery of Mother’s 1949 Ear of Iowa Corn (below) in three posts: Part I, and Part II, and Part III.

Ear of Iowa Corn, watercolor by Marion Gunderson, 1949. Prints are available.

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Next is my dad’s (Deane Gunderson) bowling ball, bag and one of his shoes. He bowled in a league in Waterloo, Iowa, in the early 1940s. He continued to bowl when he and Mother moved back to the farm in 1945. While we’ve always had this 1949 Bowling watercolor, because it had been tucked away for a while, it now seems nostalgically fresh.

Bowling, watercolor by Marion Gunderson, 1949. Prints are available.

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You can read about the following two grain elevator 1949 watercolors (of the same Pocahontas, Iowa, grain elevator) here.

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Grain Elevator I (Pocahontas, Iowa) watercolor by Marion Gunderson, 1949. Prints are available.

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The next two images are also of watercolors Mother painted in 1949. Clicking on them will enlarge the images, as is the case for any image in this post. I think these two watercolors, especially that of the rag doll, are not typical of Mother’s style of painting.

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1949 Rolfe School Yearbook

The images (below) from the 1948-49 Rolfe school The Red and Gold yearbook are a little fuzzy. The pages are a little textured, not of glossy paper like current-day yearbooks. Still, they provide a yester-year trip back to Rolfe. Remember — clicking on the images enlarges them. Have fun!

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(Click here to go to Louise Gunderson Shimon’s blog’s home page.)