Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)

Robert Treuer

Robert Treuer, Bemidji resident, writer, tree-planter, educator, politician, civil rights activist, and advocate for justicepassed away in Duluth on January 8, 2016, surrounded by family, at the age of 89.

Bob was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and Holocaust survivor. He was born in Vienna, Austria, on January 31, 1926, and very narrowly escaped the Nazis in 1938. He spent time in a camp for refugees from the Spanish Civil War in Kensington Park and then a year at a Quaker boarding school in Waterford, Ireland, while his mother, Mia Treuer, worked in London to earn enough money for a passage to America. Eventually, they made it to New York and then settled in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

His father, Fritz Treuer, joined them there. Although Fritz was an intellectual and Mia an accomplished cello and piano teacher back in Vienna, they came to America with no money and Bob had to help them rise from poverty by delivering Austrian pastries around town.

He was a talented piano and accordion player, even receiving lessons from Max Hamlisch (father of Marvin Hamlisch) in Vienna, and winning a prize playing on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour.

In 1944, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of seventeen, hoping for a chance to kill Nazis. Military command instead gave him specialized training in the Japanese language at Yale University and sent him to the Pacific Theater, where he served in the Philippines, and was honorably discharged after the war at the rank of corporal.

At age seventeen he married Nancy Nelson and they had three sons: Smith, Paul, and Derek. He took college classes at Antioch, at which time he became involved in the civil rights movement, participating in some of the first sit-ins in the northern United States.

Bob and Nancy moved to Wisconsin where Bob became a labor union organizer during the Kohler strike, one of the most famous and brutal labor strikes in U.S. history. Soon after, Bob and Nancy moved to Minnesota with their sons. There, they purchased a tax-forfeited farm on the edge of the Leech Lake Reservation where they planted trees, turning the fields to forest.

He became a high school English teacher in Cass Lake and formed strong connections with countless members of the Leech Lake community. The Fairbanks and Wilson families of Ball Club, members of the loon clan, ceremonially adopted him and gave him an Ojibwe name, Waasegaabaw (Stands With the Light).

He took a new job as community organizer for the Bemidji office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1963-66) and then as director of Red Lake's Community Action Program (1966-68).

Bob and Nancy eventually divorced, and a couple years later Bob married Margaret (Peggy) Seelye. Soon afterwards, Bob and Peggy moved to Washington, D.C. Bob worked for the office of Health, Education, and Welfare and then as director of personnel for the Office of Economic Opportunity (1968-78).

During this time, Bob and Peggy had two children: Anton and David, and Bob wrote his first book: The Tree Farm. They always spent their summers on the family property east of Bemidji and returned to stay in 1979. Soon after returning to Minnesota, Peggy and Bob had twins: Micah and Megan.

Bob called the northwoods of Minnesota home for over 60 years and never ceased nurturing the land, the community, and his family. He wrote more books here, including Voyageur Country and Northwoods Window. He was a newspaper columnist for the Bemidji Pioneer and the Star Tribune for many years, a high school teacher at Red Lake, part of the press and marketing team at Bemidji State University, and was elected as Beltrami County Commissioner.

He had an affable and biting sense of humor. He proudly announced the birth of every one of his 26 grandchildren with the cry, "Another victory over Hitler!" In addition to grandchildren he has many great- and great-great-grandchildren. In spite of the many struggles and challenges he faced, Bob always had profound compassion for others and pride in his progeny, frequently clapping and shouting "bravo" at school concerts and events with tears in his eyes.

He took care of his neighbors, was a dispenser of wild rice, chokecherry jelly, and maple syrup, and was a dear friend and mentor to many. He is remembered for being an inveterate (and creative) storyteller, an advocate for Indian people, and no matter the difficulties or dangers or indignities that life poseda man who always believed in equality and justice.

He will be deeply missed and long remembered. Bob's wishes were to be cremated.

A celebration of life ceremony will take place on July 9, 2016 from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM at the Frohn Town Hall east of Bemidji located at 8769 Roosevelt Rd SE, Bemidji MN. A potluck and will follow the formal portion of the celebration. In lieu of flowers, Bob requested donations for the conservation of Minnesota's undeveloped landscape to be sent to the Minnesota Land Trust, at http://www.mnland.org.

 

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