Mitzie Fromke

MY WIFE MITZIE

My daughter says she lived in the moment. I agree with how she lived but didn't think of it that way. She was an excellent planer which covered trips to the mountains for skiing, camping visiting relatives and even people who were not related, cooking, at which she was really good, playing games, bridge was the best, and in general partying. She knew what she wanted and would work very hard to get there (thank heaven that included me). Our first major discussion of how to act occurred at the cutting of the wedding cake (See picture). We picked the hottest day in the year in South Dakota that summer (August 5th), and the cake was actually melting as we posed over it. You can see a little stress in the picture. Learning how to water ski was on the list and we got all of her nephews as well. Snow skiing involved some broken bones that may have come back to prevent her from golfing as much as she would like. As she had knee operations, one successful, one not so. She came through a cancer with the help of broccoli sprouts which later became known as sulforaphame. But most of all she liked to dress up, but not too much for each occasion. I would put it at elegant casual. Her mother was in charge of clothes for the early years. There is a picture of Mitzie when she was two or so in a pink crochet dress. Being a farmer's wife in hard times meant that Gladys sewed almost everything for Mitzie. She was the best dressed in the 4th grade (broad green plaids were a special with a bit of shoulder pads). I know because I was there as the 4th and 5th grade were in the same room. I missed her senior year being a year ahead, but got to see all the PHS year books where she was homecoming queen, class president, tulip festival queen - more about that later and head cheer leader. She was always in the middle of group pictures. In the early grades because she was taller than even the boys until the later grades. This put her in the middle of the last row. She wanted to teach not a secretary that her mother preferred. So she got a two year teacher credential from DWU and then took summer school at Black Hills Teachers and then a final year at Northern State Teachers. Her first job was at Chamberlain with a class of 50. (It must have been a tough class as one of the class malcontents ended up killing 7 nurses in Minneapolis, I think) 

She had 4 brothers (2 older, twins younger that she helped raise) So she new how to maintain order in a classroom. My daughter informed me that it involved a rather large ring that could be brought into play with a firm knock to the skull. She was always appropriately dressed and wouldn't go shopping in anything scruffy. But back to Aberdeen (NST) and her final year of college by which time she had decided that she didn't want to be the wife of US Coast Guard sailor and had given a pin back to a future choir and vocal director with church affiliation. Along the way she became Plankinton's tulip festival queen for a season. Johnny Bartow retired to Plankinton and started planting tulips so successfully that the country club had to have a festival when they came into bloom. Fortunately for me, my father was the master of ceremonies with a little magic that year and he and Mitzie presided over the program. I am convinced that my father was taken by Mitzie and sold my mother on her suitability to be my wife. I had my heart broken previously by rejection by one of her cousins. In any case whenever I was home for the holidays, mother would always inform me that Mitzie was home and would suggest that I phone her up for a date. Our phone system was up to date. We didn't have party lines but that's how I got a date with Mitzie. She wore a black velvet dress with numerous petty cotes and she had me. I got out of the Navy. She was an officer's wife for about 2 months and I was on leave for about one month. During which time we played our first bridge together and then we set out for Berkeley graduate school in biochemistry. I had an Austin Healy that had an engine about the size of a small loaf of bread. It was four men portable. We drove west on Highway US 16 with her Mom and Dad following us. I didn't, know about that until later. The Austin Healy lost an engine block petcock, it overheated and it burned 1 quart of oil with every tank of gas. Officially out of the US Navy, we continued on to Berkeley and our first apartment. On our first trip to the grocery store we bought so much that one of us had to walk back to the apartment. I don't remember who that was. Mitzie drove the Austin Healy on the Nimitz freeway and survived on her way to a teaching job in San Leandro. But the Austin Healy was too small so we traded for a Plymouth Valliant and we were off for 64 years together.

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