Last edited Fri Sep 13, 2024, 07:46 PM - Edit history (1)

She had been fired by mayor Fiorello Laguardia for being friendlier to labor than to the mayor. He had hired her as his labor liason. Somehow, she had later gotten connected with Humphrey, and was a big NYC fundraiser for his 1948 Senate campaign. My wife found one of her fundraising letters in my dad‘s archives a few years ago. Humphrey was eternally grateful, and always stayed in touch, also introducing his top protégé, Fritz Mondale, to my dad and the rest of the family. Our connection to the so-called „Minnesota Democratic Mafia“ lasted generations

Extremely opinionated, erudite, well-read, did not like losing an argument. With the modest funds she could muster, she supported modern artists of the day, buying their works sometimes for hundreds of dollars per piece—no small deal in the 1950s and 1960s. Some remained obscure, but some, like de Kooning, Ad Reinhardt and Alberto Giacometti, became world famous after they passed. Their works cluttered her apartment like the casual accumulations they were at the time. Today, they would have required a round-the-clock security detail, as well as an insurance policy whose yearly premium would probably exceed what her whole collection had cost.

Her deep interest and involvement in politics was passed on to my dad, who ended up spending fifty years of his working career halfway between the White House and Capitol Hill.

Unfortunately, my grandmother was also a heavy smoker with a „we all have to die of something“ attitude. She died at age 66, when I was 14. I wish she had been around for another ten years. The things I could have learned! In grade school, we had had elementary French courses, but at age 11, you ask yourself, what use is this? My grandmother took me to see my first „foreign“ film, Belmondo‘s „L‘Homme de Rio.“ Something clicked, and I got it. There is more world out there than just „here.“ As you can see, it was an eye-opening lesson I never forgot.