Friday's Faces from the Past: Aunt Moe, 2003

Ten years and three weeks ago, my brother got married, and a lot of the extended family came to the wedding.  As usual, the life of the party was my Aunt Moe.

Aunt Moe (seated, with the rabbit ears) and some of her nieces and nephews and their spouses and a kid, March 1, 2003

Aunt Moe is one of my dad's younger sisters, Rose Mary Pape Dietz.  She was born June 9, 1931, in Evanston, Illinois, the fourth of five children of Paul Robert Pape Sr. (1896-1907) and Elizabeth Florence Massmann (1902-2000).  "Moes Mary" suffered from polio as a child, which resulted in one leg being shorter than the other, but she never let that slow her down, as you can see from the photo at right of her dancing at the wedding.  I remember too that she drove a school bus for many years, and the kids riding it quickly learned not to mess with the bus driver.

Moe married Ronald Joseph "Das" Dietz (1931-1994) on June 13, 1953.  They had six children:  Ronald Jr., Rochelle, Ruth, Regina, Richard, and Robert.  They lived in Glenview, Illinois, while their children were growing up, and took in Elizabeth after my grandfather Paul passed away in 1970.  She was an active member of St. Isaac Jogues parish there.  Later Moe, Das, and Nana moved to the Largo, Florida area. She had 16 grandchildren and one great-grandchild at the time of her death.

Moe passed away from cancer on May 29, 2007.  She is buried next to her husband in All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois.

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