Biographies and Obituaries
In loving memory
Charles and Rosa Mandaback
DAVIESS COUNTY, Ind.- There were no paved roads, telephones, automobiles, refrigerators, penicillin, indoor toilets or running water in 1896, and only birds flew through the air. Grover Cleveland was president, Abraham Lincoln had been dead just 31 years and it was a good idea to "candle" an egg before cooking it: Hold a candle beneath the egg and look for the silhouette of a dead baby chicken.
And on Sept.1 1896, in a two-story frame house at 7 Sycamore St. in downtown Washington, Ind., Charles and Rose Mandaback had their first child. They named her Anna. Charles manages the Sunnyside Coal Mine and was one of Daviess County's most prosperous and prominent citizens, a second generation Hoosier whose grandparents migrated to this southwestern Indiana community from Germany in the early 19th century.
Charles and Rose quickly had three more children. The family spoke only German and the children attended St. Mary’s Catholic School. On Sundays they traveled to Mass in a polished carriage drawn by four stately horses. When Anna was 7, her beloved father caught his finger in a coal car, was knocked down the mineshaft and killed. Men with sad faces arrived at St. Mary's, took Anna home and told her father was dead. She walked outside and painted the fence. "I painted it green," she vividly recalls nearly a century later.
The once prosperous, happy family was shattered, financially and emotionally. After school Anna candled eggs for a local dairy and worked in a dry-goods store to help support the struggling family. When she was 12 she made her first communion and quit school for good. She worked 12 hours a day, six days a week in the Dry goods and millinery store, which was two miles from her home. She walked. She earned $1 a week. On Sundays she wore a white dress and sang in the church choir.
The outbreak of W.W.I in 1914 provoked harsh feelings toward Daviess County's German-speaking citizens and they began speaking English to avoid trouble. Anna changed her name to Ann. When she was 18 she met Carl Vollmer, son of Daviess County's most prominent grocer, when he came in the store to buy cigars. They dated for a year, attending the opera, theater and many elegant balls. When his carriage arrived to pick her up, she carried her dancing slippers in a white cloth pouch.
She married Carl on Jan.8, 1915, in St. Mary's and they moved into a splendid home at 301 W. Main St. Carl owned Vollmer's grocery and food brokerage, prosperity returned to Ann's life. Life was good. No more candling eggs. They had three children: Danny, Beverly and Bob. Ann performed in the drama club, loved the opera, danced 'till dawn at the annual Grand Ball and played bridge, but her great passion was fishing the West Fork of the White River.
At the outbreak of W W. II, Danny, a student at the University of California, joined the Marine Corps. On Nov. 23, 1943, while storming the Tarawa beachhead in the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, he was shot in the head. His body was swept to sea and never recovered. Capt. Danny Vollmer was 22 when he vanished forever.
Ann Vollmer fished the West Fork, painting the fence green.....Carl Vollmer changed with the death of his oldest boy. He began drinking heavily, his health deteriorated and he died 10 years later, a broken, defeated man. He was 64. At the time of his death, Carl and Ann were excavating a hilltop home site on 114 acres south of Washington near the Pike County line, Daughter Beverly, a USC graduate, was a professor in Texas. Son, Bob, a Purdue graduate, was a surveyor in Nashville.
So, at age 57 and a widow, Ann Vollmer did what she always did in difficult times. Smile and keep going. Paint the fence green.......... "I built this house alone." she explained, sitting in the living room of that very house. she wore makeup, a designer black silk blouse, tailored slacks, gold earrings, a turquoise broach and her wedding ring.
"Pardon my old-lady shoes," she laughs. "My feet hurt." Ann Vollmer is in her 102nd year. She lives alone in the sprawling house above Veale Creek among tall forest of towering white pine, low rolling hills and winter bean fields. She's never worn glasses. She reads the Washington Times-Herald newspaper every day and her favorite magazines are Vogue, Women's Wear Daily, Bon Appetit, Liberal Arts and Invention and Technology. She likes to keep up on things. "I'll read anything," she said. Her calendar is packed with activities.
On the phone she had explained, "I'm busy all next week. Let's see---how about a week from Monday? It won't hurt me to stay home one day, I guess. What do you want? I'm not interesting." She rides an exercise bicycle every morning and takes no medication. She visits the doctor for routine maintenance twice a year when she remembers and has never been seriously ill. 'I do have a little sinus drainage," she said.
Her bowling average at age 99 was 167. She bowled in two leagues and substitutes in a third. Once a year she flies to Las Vegas with her friends, stays at Caesar's Palace, plays slot machines, and drinks Scotch whisky. A mounted deer head hangs over her toilet. Her son, Bob, shot it in Michigan and Mrs. Vollmer thinks it's funny. She cut four acres of grass with a push mower until she was 100. She had to quit bowling, fishing hunting, cutting grass, wearing spiked heels and driving when she was 100 because she stumbled in the bowling alley and hurt her foot and had to get old-lay shoes.
"I'm not an old lady," she said several times. "I hate these shoes." She's not joking or being self-deprecating. She doesn't believe she's old and the darn shoes are embarrassing: They don't go with tailored slacks and silk blouses. No matter--she cleans her own house, cooks does minor household repair, plays poker or bridge several nights a week., drinks Scotch at the Elks Club, goes out to dinner every chance she gets and every few weeks her gentleman friend, Mr. Cooley, drives her to the riverboat casino in Evansville for a night of partying. "All the old people are there in the afternoon,", she explained, "I like going at night because it's livelier I'll play until 1 or 2 am and if I'm hot I'll play the dollar slots.
Although she's a picture of elegance, poise and dignity, don't be deceived by the soft blue eyes, charming smile or designer clothes. She can be as hard and unyielding as forged steel. Beside her bed is a loaded .32 caliber revolver, right next to her fluffy white slippers. "I like a revolver," she explained, "You can depend on it."
One day when she was 98 or 99, she noticed a man with an ax sizing up one of her little pine trees. she jammed the gun in her belt and marched outside. 'You got plenty of trees, old lady. You won't miss one," he snarled at her. "You got plenty of tires on that car," Mrs. Vollmer shouted back. "You won't miss a few." She shot out three of his tires. As he bolted and ran, she issued a further warning 'I know where you live." She's still got his ax. Another time she fired a 12-gauge shotgun over the heads of two men illegally fishing in her pond. They ran for their lives. And then there was the man and his dog hunting on her property without permission. She warned him four times to leave. He simply laughed at he foolish old lady and disappeared into the woods. The fifth time he showed up, she grabbed her 4.10 shotgun and walked outside. I didn't say a word." she remembers, "I couldn't shoot him, so I shot that dog right between the eyes. That man left like a bull going through the sagebrush."
Whenever she goes outside she sticks the gun in her belt. She can head-shoot a rabbit at 20 yards, which requires a very steady hand. She nails the bunny to a tree, guts and skins it and makes stew. She's picky about her diet . She only eats fish, a little rabbit, lean pork, skinned chicken and nothing fried. In 21 months, Mrs. Vollmer will have lived in three centuries, the 19, the 20th and 21st, something she hadn't thought bout because she pays no attention to passing years. Or time. why worry? What good would it do? You can't stop time.
She's buried her parents, a sister, two brothers, a husband, her son and dozens upon dozens of dear friends over the long, long, years. Twenty years go she was engaged too be married in Phoenix. The day before flying West, her fiancée was killed in a car wreck. She painted the fence green by joining the Veale Creek players and dancing in the chorus line for The Pirates of Penzance.
When you live a long time you experience tremendous joy and occasional heartache," she explained. "You learn to appreciate the great joy, accept the sadness and go on. There is no other way. The death of Danny, however, nearly finished her. She points to a picture of the handsome, smiling Danny, and remembered how she prayed the terrible war would end so they could once again fish the West Fork together . It wasn't to be. "We had so much sadness losing our boy. we never even got his body back. It changed our lives. You don't ever feel like you used to. She said. "I believe it killed Carl."
Her kids, Bob, 71, and Beverly, 70, worry about Mom living alone, but no longer bring up the touchy subject. The gunslinger look crosses her face when moving is suggested. "I told them to forget it. I'm staying here and that's it. So don't mention it, anymore." she said. "I'm happy. If it wasn’t for the foot I'd still be bowling
The most difficult adjustment lately was giving up the red Buick. She had a minor parking lot incident while trying to drive with the bad foot and it scared her. She quit driving, which meant a loss of independence for the first time in her life. "I miss my wheels, but I've adjusted. I just hate asking people to drive me places, but I’m getting better," she said.
She offers no advice for living a long life. She doesn't know what she did, or why she's still alive. Luck? Good genes? Who knows? Who cares? She's having fun. That's what matters.
Maybe avoiding fried food and tobacco provides an edge. Laughing at everything, especially yourself, sure helps. Or maybe its bowling in two leagues, cutting four acres of grass with a push mower, not having a car phone, never wearing old-lady clothes, gambling until 2 a.m. sipping a little Scotch and not worrying about things you can't control, which is most things. "Whenever I think about dying," she said, " I stop thinking about dying." She paints the fence green.
Contributed by: Donna Tauber