Mary Elvene Gram (Hoag)

Mary Elvene was born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and was joined by younger brothers Lindley, Scott and Roger. The family moved to Minneapolis (in ..?..) where she developed her interest in art and music and earned a master's degree in Fine Art from the University of Minnesota. Her 1927 master's thesis, "The development of a technique for predicting creative imagination in graphic art" by Mary Elvene Hoag is in the University of Minnesota Library (http://www.lib.umn.edu/). After teaching for a couple of years, the crash of 1929 was a trigger for her and Fredrick to take off for Europe. They made their way as far as Moscow where they stayed (in somewhat dubious living and employment arrangements) long enough for first child Louise to be born.

Heading back to the US, Mary Elvene and Lou went to Montana, where in the meantime her family had set themselves up in ranching near Bozeman. By about 1935 she had rejoined Fredrick in Berwyn, Illinois where they continued to populate the world with Marty, Maravene, Parker (later re-branded as 'Fred'), and Roger. Lindley was born in St Paul following their move to Lake Owasso.

Mary Elvene was a lover of nature and animals, and enjoyed daily walks where she observed colors, scenery and vegetation. Early morning swims in Lake Owasso were frequent in the summer. She was also a great lover of small children, and after her own passed over the threshold to school age, she had frequent visits from small persons from the neighborhood who would be welcomed and set to creating pictures or playing with wooden blocks or basins of water. She knew many fairy tales and other childrens' stories by heart. and would recite them to a receptive audience. For older neighborhood children, she held paid art classes several times. She had undisciplined houseplants, as well as cats who trained her well and, at one stage, parakeets that had free reign of the house (to the disapproval of Fredrick's sister Kathrine).

She joined forces with Molly Newman, a neighbor, to take art and drama classes at Macalaster College in St Paul in the mid-1950s. This reawakened her artistic interests, and she began to paint in earnest, both portraits (for which she had numerous paid commissions) and abstract. She described her abstract paintings as being in the style of "abstract expressionism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism) that was in favor at the time. Several portraits of people in the dentist's family were painted as payment for dental bills. By the end of the 1960s she had turned to sculpting as her preferred mode of expression, and acquired a kiln. With Molly she found a kindred spirit (albeit an unlikely one) that both helped her overcome her lack of mobility (she had never obtained a driving license, whereas Molly was terror on wheels) as well as her sense of empowerment (Molly's sense of outrageous behavior and expression seemed to be liberating for Mary Elvene).

Mary Elvene loved to correspond with family and friends, and rushed to the mailbox every day hoping to receive a letter to devour. She and her mother (who lived in Montana) exchanged weekly letters for many years. She treasured the visits from her children and grandchildren who knew her as 'Myna.' She was also an avid reader, and liked to play scrabble and word games. As time and circumstances permitted, she became a creative cook, although it was not recommended to peer too closely into the containers in the refrigerator. Nor could anyone accuse her of being an obsessive housekeeper; her love of her houseplants caused her to abandon the use of detergent for the washing of dishes so that the 'enriched' wash water could be given to the plants. Many a startled visitor had to look closely to see the contents of their glass through the cloudy film that coated it. As far as is known, however, the number of fatalities linked to this glassware was minimal ;-) .