Marty Chipman

Iva Marcita "Marty" Chipman died Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at the Heritage Nursing Home, Bancroft, at the age of 101. A graveside inurnment will be held on Saturday at 11:00 AM at St. John's Catholic Cemetery, Bancroft with Father Sonny Dominic officiating. Her family will greet friends on Friday from 4 to 7 PM at Oakcrest Funeral Services of Bancroft with a scripture prayer service beginning at 7 PM. She is survived by four children, Roger (Julie) Hendrickson of Fairmont, MN, Rita (Gilbert) Wenzel of Woodbury, MN, Dean (Jessie) Hendrickson of Fort Dodge, and James (Lyn) Chipman of Fairmont, MN; nine grandchildren, Eric Hendrickson, Heidi Szymanski, Greta Wenzel, Heather Russell, Molly Hendrickson, Matt Chipman, Ashley Innes, Beth Massey and Ann Erdmann; and 18 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband Clarence Hendrickson in 1950; her husband Richard Chipman in 1999; and a grandson Steve Hendrickson in 2006. In the words of Marty Chipman: I was born in Slayton, Minnesota on December 27, 1910. I was the first (and only) child of Matt Donndelinger and Rose Noonan Donndelinger. My dad's ancestors were from Luxembourg and my mother's were from Ireland....[more]

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believe my dad was a barber during this time because that's what he was doing when he first moved from Hastings to Madelia and met my mother. From 1913 to 1918, my parents owned and operated the hotel in Tyler, Minnesota. We were there when the big tornado came through and wiped out most of the town. Fortunately, the hotel suffered very little damage and was pressed into service by the National Guard as a temporary hospital and morgue. I still remember the dining room tables being used as makeshift slabs for the victims. From 1918 to 1922, we lived in Madelia, Minnesota where dad was a barber, and in Mankato where he ran a boarding house. We had a family friend who was a professional photographer, consequently I have many pictures of myself as a young girl dressed in costumes and posed quite nicely, thank you. I attended Good Counsel Academy here and remember my First Holy Communion very well... during the ceremony, I fainted from all the fasting the day and night before and was carried from the church. In 1922, we moved to Des Moines, Iowa. As I recall we didn't live down there very long, maybe less than a year. While there, I started piano lessons and became quite proficient. Later in life, this love of music would be passed on to my offspring. The next stop was Mason City, Iowa. We were back in the hotel business as operators of the Lester Hotel. This was where I finished grade school and continued on the piano. In 1925, my father and mother bought the hotel in Graceville, Minnesota and operated it through 1928.This was also where I graduated from high school. During this time, my piano skills helped me land the job playing accompaniment for silent movies. My "artsy" side was not limited solely to music. I designed the rings for the Graceville High Senior graduating class of 1928. Josten's accepted my design and was impressed enough to offer me a job after graduation, but I declined. We moved to Mankato in 1929. I attended Mankato State Teachers College (like my mother before me), and dad got busy building the Minneopa Golf Course. I kept busy on the piano here, too, with recitals and concerts. After I graduated from college in 1930, there were a couple of years where I took trips to California, visiting the beach and the movie studios. One year I was accompanied by Mom, Dad and Mrs. Blakesley (who had lost her husband in the Tyler tornado). We drove out there in our Willys-Knight. The next year, Aunt Annie and I went out by train. (one of the trips was to separate me from Lloyd Keogan, who, hereafter, will not be mentioned.) I also remember my mother telling me to return a diamond ring to a young father in California whose divorce was not yet final!!! Another adventure about this time was a trip to New York with a young gentleman in a Cord automobile. I don't remember his name, but we stopped in Clear Lake, Iowa to pick up his mother for the remainder of the trip. I went to work for the Penny store in Mankato in 1934 and met Clarence Hendrickson, a Norwegian from Grand Forks, North Dakota. We got married on November 28, 1935. He was quite the hunter and fisherman and I have several pictures of the two of us in the field, so to speak. During this time we made several trips to Minneapolis with other couples for dinner and dancing. We both continued to work at Pennys until our first baby, Roger, was born on November 29, 1939 at Saint Josephs in Mankato. In June of 1940, we bought the Croft Theatre in Bancroft, Iowa and moved into a little"3-rooms-and-a-bath" apartment directly over the business. Our second baby, Rita, was born on May 25, 1944 at Emmanuel Lutheran in Mankato. Our third baby, Dean, was born on February 13, 1946 back in St. Josephs. As you can guess, our little apartment was growing cramped with a family of five. Clarence and I decided to buy a lot and build one of those new-fangled "ranch" homes. We located a couple of lots that looked perfect and bought them. Then, on February 3, 1950, Clarence suffered a massive heart attack and passed away at the age of 41. It was almost as big a blow to the community as it was to my family. I was extremely fortunate to have support of so many friends and relatives at the time... and even more fortunate to have one very special friend step forward to help in the raising of three young children. On March 6, 1951 I married my special friend, Richard Chipman. He was from Burt, Iowa and the fourth of five sons from a good English family. We went ahead and with the plans for building the house and moved into it early in the spring of 1952. Our marriage was blessed with a son, James, born May 21, 1952 at the Kossuth County Hospital in Algona, Iowa. In the years following, the theatre business (which was always full of ups and downs), finally was dealt a fatal blow by television and we were forced to close the doors in 1958. However, Richie had seen the handwriting on the wall and had already begun to study for a career as a Life Insurance Agent. He was well-liked and highly successful in this business, due largely to his dedication and honesty. The family enjoyed the fruits of his labor through vacation trips to Banff, Arizona, and Palm Springs. These trips were given as awards to "agents of Excellence" by the Bankers Life Insurance Company, and Richie won many of them. During these years, I was the "North Kossuth Correspondent to the Fairmont Sentinel"... I sold subscriptions for "Farm Journal" magazine...I worked in the drugstore in Bancroft, and I donated my abilities as an organizer to the American Cancer Society for 35 years in a row. I've always tried to stay busy with a wide range of hobbies, too. I love gardening and flowerbeds... my knitting and crocheting have been awarded blue ribbons at the local county fairs and at the Iowa State Fair. Ceramics, wine-making, rug weaving, hooked rugs... they've all passed through these hands. All our children have gotten good educations... high school, college, etc. Dean and Jim have both served their country in the Army, and both returned unharmed. All our sons and our daughter are married and have given us 10 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren. From what I can see, they have music in them, too. Rich and I continued to live our retirement years in the home that we built in Bancroft until he lost a brief but courageous battle with cancer and died on January 18, 1999.