This is week
51 of the 52 Weeks challenge and the prompt is “nice”.
When I was
growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, our family was the recipient of an annual
basket of fresh fruit. It arrived every year in time for the holidays. The card
was always signed “The Mungers”. In the 40s and 50s fresh fruit in the winter
was rare since the transportation and distribution of fresh items had not yet
been perfected. I always wondered who the Mungers were and why they sent such a
nice gift.
When I began
doing genealogy this was one of many apparent mysteries I wanted to answer.
In the 1930s
my father and his sister were friends with a young couple named Otto (aka Bud) and
Grace (Munger)Dvorak who also lived in Chicago. Otto and Grace had both been
born and raised in Iowa before marrying and moving to Chicago where Otto was
employed by John Morrell & Co. As graduates of the University of Iowa they
were ardent supporters of the football team and often went back for games. My
father and his sister Dorothy often went with them. The friendship flourished
and grew even stronger when Dorothy married Bob Murray and the young couples
began having children.
In 1938
Grace was home in Iowa and 8 ½ months pregnant with her third child. On 28 Dec 1938, Grace went into labor.
Complications of her pregnancy caused Grace to hemorrhage and she died giving
birth to a son David.
Grace was
survived by her husband Otto, daughter Barbara, sons Dudley and David as well
as her parents Grant and Mable Munger and sister Dorothy.
The Mungers
never forgot the friendship that was forged by the young people and remembered
it every year with the special gift of the fruit basket.
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