Person:Maurine Ludcke (1)

Maurine attended the St. Peter public schools, and Graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College (class of 1924) with a major in French.

  She met Dick Pulver, from Kasota, through her brother Gipp who was a classmate of Dick's at Gustavus where they both played on the baseball team. Beneath Maurine's picture in the college yearbook it said "she's pulverizing her name".
  Studied the piano, and played the organ in the Episcopal Church to which she belonged with her mother and brother, her father belonged to the Catholic Church.

Maurine spent her married life in Duluth, MN. where she was active in a number of activities: Red Cross during World War II, Children's Home Society, St. Luke's Hospital (where she had one of the longest records of volunteer service), Women's Club, and was an active tennis and golf player. She enjoyed decorating her home and found great enjoyment hunting for "antiques" to adorn it's rooms. When John was young there was "live-in" help to free up time for many of her activities. She was always an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and directed that upon her death that her ashes be placed in a nitch in the church. Over the years she traveled to much of the United States and Europe. Her last trip to Europe, was at age 77, with her granddaughters Catharine and Celia.

  "As an only child I had to fill the role of both son and daughter for my parents. Hopefully I succeeded at the former and didn't fail at the latter. Not only did my father program my daily summer chores in the garden, and the furnace in the winter, but mother also called upon me for assistance in the house. As a only child, I perhaps had a closer relationship with my mother than  children from larger families. When I was child we did many things together, such as rummaging in antique shops, which were then called second hand stores. Mother always had a keen eye for little whatnots worth, supposedly, far in excess of the price asked by the shopkeeper. We both liked to travel by automobile, and  had a number of wonderful trips together. One covered the territory from Minnesota to Quebec, Boston, Cape Code and New York City. At times we found ourselves in such fits of laughter we had to pull over to the side of the road. Another trip took us to Windsor, VT.; Sudbury, Mass., Pine Planes and Tonawanda, N.Y.; all of which are mentioned in this family history as places where Burkes, Parmenters, Pulvers and Gipps lived many years ago. It provided source material for some of the information in this genealogy.
  "I've always enjoyed listening to Mother reminisce about her childhood in St. Peter. Mother once wrote to me "I had such wonderful childhood days - nice to think about them". As a child her family still used a horse and carriage for travel about town or out to Lake Emily for summer vacations. Her father, Henry, built their home that seemed elegant to a small child in the small town St. Peter.  In the early 1990s a devastating tornado leveled much of the town, but not for her house. She and her brother Gipp (their mother's maiden name) recall an almost perfect and idyllic childhood. The small town atmosphere, particularly the pleasant summers, left one after another pleasant impressions in Mother's memory. I am fortunate she shared so many of her recollections with me.
  "At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Mother was a child St. Peter was still isolated from the problems of the world that bombard even the youngest of children today. The St. Peter Herald carried the weekly local news, and once a week the Minneapolis newspaper could be read to broaden one's horizon. At the time of her birth it was only 40 years after her grandfather had been a volunteer in the Sioux Indian uprising. In her lifetime some of the greatest strides mankind has ever made in the areas of science, exploration, transportation, communication, medicine, electronics, warfare and manmade destruction. I  believe no prior generation of our family, and possibly none in the  future, will see so much change compressed into one lifetime.
  "Although a widow at a relatively young age (50) Mother never sought another marriage. At the time of Dad's death her brother Gipp predicted she would never remarry as she was a "one man woman". Fortunately a long widowhood was supported by a group of very close friends affectionately labeled "the girls". Pictures of Mother as a young woman attest to the fact she was very pretty. To the end she has retained her lovely appearance and a youthful outlook on life.
  "Both as a child, and today, I cannot imagine a more perfect mother. This same feeling probably existed toward a number of our ancestral mothers, and hopefully is a tribute to be deserved of the mothers who will follow.
  "She lived in our family home at 3645 East Third Street, Duluth, MN until 1992 when she was 90 years old. At that time I moved her first to Friendship Village in Edina, MN and then to the Episcopal Home in St. Paul. She died July 7, 1993 just twenty days short of her 92 birthday." (John Pulver)

1. ↑ ML9/20/1926, Record Type: Certificate of Marriage, Spouses' Names: Richard Fillmore Pulver, Maurine Louise Lud. (09/20/1926)
   Certificate Of Marriage. State of Minnesota, County of Nicollet. Spetember 20, 1926 at St. Peter. By Wi. L. Johnson a priest of the Episcopal Church. Maurine Louise Ludcke and Richard Fillmore Pulver. Witnesses by Gipp L. Ludcke and Nora A. Pulver.
2. ↑ of complications due to advanced age.
3. ↑ in a "nitch" in St. Paul's Episcopal Church,