Archive for the ‘Marion Gunderson’ Category

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Deane C. Gunderson (Obituary, 1964 Fort Dodge Messenger Article, and Links to Additional Articles)

July 21, 2010

Daddy at the age of 88 in 2007. He looked just like this (including the sparkle in his eyes) until within days before he passed away on July 1st, 2010. The only difference from this photo and seeing him in “real life” was he typically had his shirt collar buttoned and was a true blue Iowa Stater wearing his self-handcrafted ISU bolo tie! (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Deane C. Gunderson, age 91, died on Thursday, July 1, 2010, at the Israel Family Hospice House in Ames.

Deane Charles Gunderson, son of John Christian Gunderson and DeElda (Lighter) Gunderson, was born on September 16, 1918, in Roosevelt Township, Pocahontas County, Iowa.  He graduated from Rolfe High School in 1935 and received B.S. degrees in Agricultural Engineering (1939) and Mechanical Engineering (1940) from Iowa State College.

On July 23, 1941, Deane Gunderson and Marion Abbott were married in Ogden, Utah.  They resided in Waterloo, Iowa, for nearly four years while Deane worked as an engineer for the John Deere Tractor Company.  In 1945 Marion and Deane moved with their three young children to the farm southwest of Rolfe where they continued to live for six decades.

Deane was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, president his senior year and president of the House Corporation for 24 years.  He was active in the Republican Party, Community Chest and Lions Club, and a Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League.

Deane was a member of the Shared Ministry of Rolfe.  He served on the Board of Directors of the Rolfe State Bank.  He was involved in public education for 25 years, having served on the Rolfe Community School District Board of Directors from 1966 to 1981, and as a Director and Treasurer of the Iowa Association of School Boards from 1971-1991.  He also served on the Board of Governors of the Iowa State University Foundation.

In 1980, Iowa State University awarded Alumni Recognition Medals to Deane and Marion.  He was an avid Cyclone fan and in 1975 created an 11½-foot, welded sculpture of Cy that stood at the north end of the ISU football stadium for many years.  In 1981 Iowa State named Deane as Cy’s Favorite Alum.

During 1975-1977, Deane wrote a weekly column, “Bubbles in the Wine,” for The Rolfe Arrow.

His interests included farming, education, mathematics, welding, land surveying and farm drainage systems.  He specialized in creating larger combinations of farm machinery* for increased production per farm worker.  He seemed to have friends wherever he went and enjoyed engaging them with his stories.  He was proud of his children and delighted in his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  He was a generous person, encouraged others in their endeavors and was noted for pointing out life’s wonders, including Sputnik, the Pythagorean theorem, bean seeds germinating, a fox den in a creek bank, and the West Bend Grotto.

Deane was preceded in death by his wife, Marion, his parents, and one son, Christian Gunderson.  He is survived by his son Charles Gunderson and wife Gloria; daughters Clara Hoover and husband Harold, Helen Gunderson, Martha Carlson and husband Michael, Margaret Moore and husband Jeffrey, and Louise Shimon and husband William; seven grandchildren: Christina Gunderson, Timothy Gunderson, Kevin Carlson, Joshua Moore, Jonathan Moore, Abigail Shimon and Kathryn (Shimon) Moon; three great-grandchildren: Michael Williams, Addison Valletta and Jackson Johnstone; and several cousins.

A memorial service will be held at the Shared Ministry of Rolfe at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 31.

In lieu of flowers, Deane requested contributions be made to the Rolfe Lions Club (P.O. Box 101, Rolfe, Iowa 50581).

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*If you have time, I hope you will click TWICE on this photo to read this 1964 Fort Dodge Messenger article about one aspect of my dad’s engineering. (With clicking on the photo just once, the text will likely be too small to read. This is posted with permission granted by The Messenger.)

Daddy’s obituary will be in today’s (July 21st) edition of the Pocahontas Record-Democrat. It will also be in this Sunday’s (July 25th) edition of the Fort Dodge Messenger, the Ames Tribune and the Des Moines Register. Sometime later I’ll post a bunch of photos of Daddy; in the same post as his obituary somehow just didn’t seem to work for me.

If you are able to attend Daddy’s service and luncheon afterward, please be sure to let me know you are there. (I felt so bad that I missed some people who were at Mother’s service.) Also, if you can’t attend the service but think you will be in Rolfe later in the day on the 31st or sometime that weekend, it would be nice if you’d email (mariongundersonart@gmail.com) or call me to let me know; maybe we could work out a way to have our paths cross.

(Cy’s Favorite Alum)

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

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Posted in Bubbles In The Wine, Deane Gunderson, Iowa, John Deere, Marion Gunderson, Rolfe | 6 Comments »

There is never enough until it is given away.

June 22, 2010

Daddy (Deane Gunderson) fell again on Sunday. I’m with him a lot and therefore back into short-and-simple posting mode, at least for now.

I know that people look at this blog for a variety of reasons. Many people look purely because they want more information about Mother (Marion Gunderson). After I posted the image of the placard from Mother’s 1970 exhibit at Younkers in Des Moines, I thought maybe readers in the “want to learn about Marion” category might like to see Mother in her element (the library) around the time of that 1970 Younkers exhibit.

Mother (Marion Gunderson) in the former Rolfe Public Library, circa 1970. What you see here, including the walls in the background, comprises about 1/4 of the main room of the former library. Does anyone know what the artwork is on the back wall? (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Mother’s note on this photo says, “About 1970.” (That was my sophomore year in high school.) The location is the former Rolfe Public Library where Mother was a librarian for 35 years. Click on the photo to read the saying she took to heart.

It’s sort of fuzzy so (even though I still hope you’ll click on the photo to look more closely), here’s the saying. Simple, but so easy to forget.

LOVE is a basket of five loaves of bread and two fishes.

There is never enough until it is given away.

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

Posted in Iowa, Marion Gunderson, Rolfe | 2 Comments »

Marion Gunderson’s 1970 Younkers Exhibit Placard

June 18, 2010

Speaking of Younkers…at about the same time I posted most recently, I ran across a placard from one of Mother’s (Marion Gunderson) watercolor exhibits. Below is the front of the placard, as well as the back of it with her handwriting indicating the month and year of the exhibit. July 1970.

The handwriting is in pencil on a dark background, making it quite difficult to read in the raw scan. Using the actual placard as a guide, I edited the bottom photo to provide more contrast between her penciled writing and the dark background. Mother’s actual handwriting is probably most dear to her immediate family. Even so, I wanted to include it in this post.

Placard from Mother's July 1970 exhibit at Younkers in Des Moines. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Mother's handwriting on the back of the placard. (Click on photo twice magnify.)

As far as I know, none of us in the family knows where in the Younkers store Mother exhibited. We are assuming her exhibit was in the Younkers Tea Room in downtown Des Moines. If you happen to have more information, either verifying or contradicting, I hope you’ll let me know.

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

Posted in Marion Gunderson | 1 Comment »

ISU Heating Plant Vantage Point, Simplified

June 11, 2010

ISU Heating Plant, Ames, Iowa, watercolor by Marion Gunderson, 1951. (Click on image to enlarge.)

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In case the first “Vantage Point” post about Mother’s (Marion Gunderson) ISU Heating Plant watercolor was just a little too detailed for you, here’s the cut-to-the-chase version. At left is the image of her watercolor (same image as in the first post).

I’m also including a photo-with-explanation indicating her most likely vantage point for the watercolor.

At the end of this post are links that provide more information about Iowa State University’s heating/power plant.

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Iowa State University Power Plant, March 2010. (Click photo to enlarge.)

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At the links below, more information is available about the history of Iowa State University’s heating/power plant, or current information.

At this link scroll down to the “Power and Heating Plant” heading.http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/campus/ISU%20Campus%20and%20Its%20Buildings%20-%20Physical%20Education-Soil%20Laboratory.pdf

ISU power plant floor plans, etc., are available here. http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/maps/building.asp?id=106

Additional background information is available here.http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/campus/ISU%20Campus%20and%20Its%20Buildings%20-%20Utilities.pdf

This Iowa State University link (http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/maps/) provides a map of campus. To easily see the location of the current power plant, in the upper right at this ISU web site you’ll get a pop-up menu if you click on “select building.” In that pop-up menu, select “power plant.” OR, at the left side of the same web page where it says “Layers,” put a check mark in front of “building names.” Then enlarge the map (i.e., click on the “+” sign) a little and you’ll be able to see the names of buildings on campus.

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

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Posted in ISU Heating Plant (Iowa State Power), Marion Gunderson, Watercolor image | Leave a Comment »

Iowa State University Heating Plant + Marion Gunderson = Georgia O’Keeffe-like Watercolor

June 2, 2010

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Mother (Marion Gunderson) used to store her watercolors in two ways at Gunderland. She had approximately seventy of her watercolors stored loose in portfolios under the basement steps. Another fifteen-or-so of her paintings were framed and displayed around the perimeter of the basement.

A portion of Marion Gunderson’s ISU Heating Plant watercolor, 1951. (Click photo to enlarge.)

It must have been after Mother passed away in 2004 that one of those paintings hanging in the basement caught my attention. I had no idea what building/location was in the painting. I just knew that the Georgia O’Keeffe-like gentle-curvy lines and rich colors that Mother used prompted me to ask to have this particular painting.

Not realizing that the painting included mounds of black coal, I thought that perhaps the painting was of another ag-related building. My dad (Deane Gunderson) and my husband (Bill Shimon) didn’t know the exact location of the building in the painting; because of the coal in the painting, they believed the painting might have been of something factory-related.

Mother’s, Clara’s (my oldest sister) and Marti’s (one of my middle siblings) work helped with my investigation. Several years ago at Mother’s request, Marti took inventory snapshots of as many of Mother’s watercolors as could be located. Mother then put those snapshots in an album. Along with the snapshots, Mother provided corresponding documentary notes for most of her paintings that were in those snapshots. Since before Mother passed away in 2004, Clara has been our family’s keeper and continuing recorder of documentation about Mother’s watercolors.

Back to the above-mentioned painting…I hung on to the painting for another couple of years before asking Clara if she had any idea of the identity of the building in the painting. Clara looked in Mother’s notes and found that about this particular painting, Mother had noted, “ISU Heat Plant, Ames, Iowa. From charcoal sketch done while at ISU.”

Bingo! Identity known!

Alongside Mother’s signature on the painting she included the year “1951.” Mother attended Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) from 1937-1941. We assume that she created a charcoal sketch of the heating plant sometime between 1937 and 1941, and later, with the charcoal sketch as her reference, in 1951 painted her watercolor of the same heating plant.

Because the heating plant in the watercolor looks nothing like the present Iowa State University power plant, I was confused about what Mother’s vantage point might have been when she painted the heating plant. I recently contacted Jeffrey Witt, ISU’s Assistant Director of Utilities, to learn more about the history of Iowa State’s heating plant. More specifically, I wondered if he could shed some light on where Mother’s vantage point as she painted might have been, in relation to the current power plant at Iowa State.

In the next post I’ll include the connect-the-dots information Jeff provided in regard to history of Iowa State’s heating/power plant and Mother’s 1951 watercolor of the older plant.

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

Posted in ISU Heating Plant (Iowa State Power), Marion Gunderson, Watercolor image | 2 Comments »

A Designer’s Perspective

March 17, 2010

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Grain Elevator, Rolfe, Iowa, by Marion Gunderson, circa 1950. Standard size limited edition -- 13.25" W x 17.25" H, $35. When matted, fits in standard size 20" x 24" frame.* (Click photo to enlarge.)

Kathleen Beeler is an interior designer friend who several months ago saw a few of Mother’s original watercolors. Kathleen plans to incorporate fresh-looking artwork in her home and wanted to take a look at prints of Mother’s watercolors…mainly the agriculture-related ones.

Yesterday I took prints to Kathleen’s home for her to try in various rooms. (I felt like the Fuller Brush man.) Kathleen was/is so pleased with her finds. Knowing that Kathleen has a design background that I trust, I got goosebumps thinking how pleased Mother would have been listening to Kathleen ooh and aah about Mother’s work. “They fit my house, my lifestyle and my husband’s background.”

What really made me “see” Mother smile was something Kathleen said about the ag-related prints/originals, for example of the Rolfe, Iowa, grain elevator that was destroyed in a 1969 fire. Or the Iowa State University heating plant** (that Mother painted a watercolor of in 1951) that no longer exists. Kathleen kept commenting about how even though the watercolors were painted decades ago, they haven’t faded out of style. She said, “They aren’t stylized. They are sophisticated. They are contemporary portrayals of something in America we’re losing.”

Exactly.

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* Click here for size/price information about prints. All profits from sales of prints go to the Rolfe (Iowa) Public Library.

** Within the next few months, prints of the Iowa State University heating plant watercolor will be available.

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

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Posted in Grain Elevator, Marion Gunderson, Rolfe Grain Elevator, Watercolor image | 3 Comments »

Hollyhocks Watercolor by Marion A. Gunderson, 1954

March 14, 2010

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The newest image for this blog’s header/banner is of a very small portion of the Hollyhocks watercolor (below) painted by Mother in 1954. (1954 was about two years after Cathrine Barr taught her last class for northwest Iowa’s Barr Art Association. The association* continued to meet into the 1970s.)

Hollyhocks watercolor by Marion A. Gunderson, 1954. This watercolor was framed and behind glass in this photo. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

In case you are trying to figure out exactly from where in the watercolor the much smaller banner image is taken, maybe this explanation will help. If you could take the banner that is above and rotate it 180 degrees, it would be right-side-up. It could then overlay part of the lower left hollyhock bloom in the actual painting.

Before I had this original framed. I took two frame moulding samples to Mother’s nursing home room. (This would have been within the year before she passed away.) I explained to her that I wanted her to select the moulding sample that she liked best, which she did. After the framing was complete, but before Bill and I hung this watercolor in our home, I once again took Hollyhocks to Mother (still in the nursing home) so she could bask in her painting’s beauty.

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To view images and size/cost information regarding currently available prints of Mother’s watercolors, click on the “View and Order Prints” link on this blog’s home page.

With Easter just around the corner, at present the Bunny prints are in the highest demand. In the actual Bunny prints, the tail and ears look more pink-than-orange than they do on my computer monitor.

Prints have not yet been made of the Hollyhocks painting. However, if you have an interest in having a print of this watercolor, please contact me at mariongundersonart@gmail.com.

*More information about Cathrine Barr and the Barr Art Association is in this post. Within the next year, I hope to have additional information to add about Cathrine and/or the association.

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

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Posted in Hollyhocks, Marion Gunderson, Watercolor image | 5 Comments »

1940s Construction and Watercolors of the Pocahontas, Iowa, Grain Elevator (Part II)

February 18, 2010

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In 1949, Mother (Marion Gunderson) painted two watercolors of the Pocahontas, Iowa, grain elevator/concrete silos. (Information about those two and other watercolors is available at “View and Order Prints.”)

Mother's (Marion Gunderson) signature on one of her 1949 watercolors of the Pocahontas, Iowa, grain elevator.

Not long before Mother painted those watercolors in 1949, Mike Hood, formerly of Pocahontas, watched that same Pocahontas grain elevator being built. The following is a continuation of Part I of Mike’s recollection. Most of the information below is about Mike’s family, but gives a “visual” of the 1940s. Mike was 8 or 9 years old at that time. As you read the rest of his essay, try to imagine looking through his eyes as a child…more than sixty years ago.

* * * * * * * *

By Mike Hood

(continued from Part I)

We had a pony named Fancy and a lovely little four-wheel black buggy with yellow wheels, that I was the right age to use. I could harness the pony and would drive the rig for hours in a hay field of about 10 acres south of our house. That house still stands on the west side of the road one-quarter of a mile north of the Pocahontas County Courthouse. (Grandfather Michael Linnan’s name is on a wall in the courthouse because he was a County Supervisor when it was built in the 1920s.) I remember that sometimes I would meet my cousins and give them a ride for that last quarter mile on the little buggy. I remember, too, that they would be dead tired from the hard work of pouring concrete for those long 12-hour shifts.

Pocahontas Grain Elevator II prints are available in three sizes: Small (Limited Edition, 10" W x ~12.3" H, $25). Grand (Limited Edition, ~ 17.9" W x 22" H, $50). Largest (20" W x ~24.5" H, same size as the original). Click photo to enlarge.

Jim’s and Frank’s motive, of course, was money for college. Their father, Uncle Charles Linnan, of rural Laurens, rented a 160-acre farm and was not extremely money prosperous in those days. Both of those boys graduated from the University of Iowa. Jim Linnan had a successful career at Ruan in Des Moines, and was the mayor of Clive, Iowa, when he died suddenly of a heart attack in the spring of 1970.

My uncle Bill Linnan was the father of Donald Linnan, of Storm Lake and former County Engineer of Buena Vista County, of Fr. Roger Linnan, who continues as a popular parish priest who served at Jefferson, Manson, Spencer and even now in his 70s at Haywarden, and of Karen Brown, who is married to a retired dentist from Montana, now retired in Sioux City.

All of those cousins were college graduates and were an inspiration to me. I was an editor at Successful Farming and Country America magazines, and now oversee our several farms and photograph antique tractors for calendars.

I remember very clearly sitting on the roof of the chicken house on that Pocahontas farm and counting five concrete grain elevators in what must have been the summer of 1950. Those would have been at Pocahontas, Havelock, Plover, Rolfe and Gilmore City. Obviously, the concrete grain storage technology caught on very rapidly.

We moved from our wonderful Pocahontas 160-acre place to a 305-acre farm bordering Columbia, Missouri, in March of 1951, and in a few years I would be hauling wheat to an old-fashioned tin-sided elevator on hot July days and nights. The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright called those grain elevators the skyscrapers of the prairies. Indeed!

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

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Posted in Grain Elevator, Iowa, Marion Gunderson, Pocahontas, Pocahontas Grain Elevator I, Pocahontas Grain Elevator II, Watercolor image | 2 Comments »

1940s Construction and Watercolors of the Pocahontas, Iowa, Grain Elevator (Part I)

February 16, 2010

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Pocahontas Grain Elevator II prints are available in three sizes: Small (Limited Edition, 10" W x ~12.3" H, $25). Grand (Limited Edition, ~ 17.9" W x 22" H, $50). Largest (20" W x ~24.5" H, same size as the original). Click photo to enlarge.

The November 10th, 2009, Des Moines Register included an article about Mother’s (Marion Gunderson) watercolors and the Rolfe, Iowa, 1980-81 oral history project.* Published alongside that article was a photo of Mother. Also included with that article was this post’s photo (at left) of one of Mother’s painted-in-1949 watercolors of the Pocahontas, Iowa, grain elevator.

Enticed by that Register article, including the image of Mother’s grain elevator watercolor, Mike and Sally Hood of West Des Moines attended the open house.

After the open house I remembered Mike’s telling of his first-hand story of the 1948 or 1949 construction of that same Pocahontas, Iowa, grain elevator.  At my request, Mike was generous to pen that story and allow me to post it here.

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By Mike Hood

(formerly of Pocahontas, Iowa)

It was exciting to be a little boy perhaps 8 or 9 years old in Pocahontas, Iowa, in the summer of 1948 or 1949 when they were building the huge concrete silos** to enlarge and modernize the main grain elevator in town. It was particularly exciting for me because my Uncle W. B. Linnan was supplying all of the concrete from his Ready-Mix plant on the east edge of town for this structure. (The Ready-Mix plant still stands much as it was then!) Also, two older cousins, brothers Jim and Frank Linnan, who were college students at the University of Iowa, were living with us and working on this project, which was a very good paying job with good hourly wages and, of course, long hours.

I remember that once they started pouring concrete for the grain silos, they had to continue nonstop until it was completed. They used slip forms that were jacked upward and were filled with wet concrete as the construction progressed. As I recall, my cousins worked long 12-hour shifts and walked home from work to our farm.

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At this point, I’m interrupting Mike’s essay. I’ll include the rest of it in the next post.  (Part of the remainder of his essay includes information about Mike’s family that he included for his daughters.)

For now, to quickly learn how (or to refresh your memory) the slip forms to which Mike referred were/are used to construct concrete grain elevators, please watch this 33-second YouTube video.

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* This oral history project was spearheaded by Mother.

** The silos to which Mike referred are the silos painted twice by Mother in the 1940s.

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

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Posted in Grain Elevator, Iowa, Marion Gunderson, Pocahontas, Pocahontas Grain Elevator II, Watercolor image | Leave a Comment »

Red Flower Watercolor by Marion A. Gunderson

February 3, 2010

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In this trio of originals of Mother's watercolors, Red Flower, painted in 1969, is at the right. (Click photo to enlarge.)

Several of Mother’s (Marion Gunderson) original watercolors were on display at the November open house. These originals were either loose and displayed on tables, or framed. Open house guests were informed that if they had an interest in having a print made of any of the displayed watercolors, to make me aware of their desires. If there was enough interest in prints of any particular watercolor, I’d consider making prints available.

(Click image twice to enlarge.)

Two women attending the open house expressed interest in this Red Flower original. Voila! Because of their interest, prints of Red Flower are now available in three sizes.

Small unmatted*: 7″ W x 10″ H; $15

Medium: 10″ W x 14 3/8″ H; $25

Large: ~13.5″ W x ~19.5″ H limited edition; $40 (The original has the same dimensions.)

Wild Faces Gallery in Rolfe, Iowa, intends to have available at least one print of each size. I plan to have the same inventory at my home. The Rolfe Public Library plans to have at least one print of Red Flower available; however due to space/storage constraints there, the library might not always have one of every size.

If you are interested in viewing and/or purchasing a print(s), feel free to do so at Wild Faces Gallery in Rolfe (712-848-3399) or at the Rolfe Public Library (712-848-3143). You may also view and/or purchase prints by contacting me at mariongundersonart@gmail.com. In addition, I am happy to ship prints.

These Red Flower prints are gorgeous. Just take my word for it. These prints are g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s.

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* From time to time we’ll have this small size available with a pre-selected double mat option. The matted print will fit in a standard size 11″ x 14″ frame. When this pre-selected mat option is available, the matted print will be $29. We’ve started offering this matting on more small-sized prints because at the open house this option to fit in a standard size frame was so popular.

To see images of additional prints of Mother’s watercolors, click on “View and Order Prints” at the right side of this blog’s home page.

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Posted in Marion Gunderson, Red Flower, Watercolor, Watercolor image | 2 Comments »

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