Mary Jane (Bormann) HAWKINS

HAWKINS, BORMANN, BUSICK, JANUS, HECK, NORDQUIST, MURRAY

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 9/19/2006 at 23:10:26

Mary Jane Hawkins, 78, of West Des Moines, died Wednesday, April 4, 2001, at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Des Moines. Funeral services were held Friday, April 6, at St. Francis of Assisi Church in West Des Moines and St. John’s Catholic Church in Clarion. Burial was at St. John’s Catholic Cemetery, Clarion, alongside her husband, Dr. Charles P. Hawkins, who died in 1981. Mary Jane Bormann was born in Cedar Rapids on July 14, 1922, the daughter of Gertrude and John Bormann. She graduated from Immaculate Conception High School in Cedar Rapids and attended Clarke College in Dubuque with her twin sister, Mary Kay. She met her future husband, Charles Hawkins, when her brother, Johnny, then a student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, brought his best friend home to Cedar Rapids for a Thanksgiving holiday break. Mary Jane and Charles were engaged for four years while he was in the Army during World War II, fighting in the South Pacific, and Mary Jane worked for the Chamber of Commerce in Cedar Rapids. Mary Jane and Charles Hawkins were united in marriage in Cedar Rapids on February 28, 1946, and lived in Milwaukee where her husband attended medical school at Marquette. After Charles’ internship finished at the University of Iowa Hospital the couple moved from Iowa City to Clarion, just days after the birth of their fourth child. For almost 30 years, while her husband was in practice with Drs. Robert Eaton, Robert McCool and Richard Young at the Clarion Clinic, Mary Jane was managing the growing Hawkins household. Mary Jane was a member and president of St. Mary’s Circle at St. John’s Catholic Church in Clarion. She helped win a city bowling title for her Monday night team at Hi-Hatt Lanes, volunteered to deliver Meals on Wheels, and worked as a U.S. Census enumerator. She also put thousands of miles on her station wagon driving the children to Camp Fire, Girls and Boy Scout summer camps and was known for the numerous coffee klatches she hosted and attended with friends.

She is survived by four daughters, Pat Busick of Des Moines, Peggy Janus and husband, Dr. Todd Janus of Gurnee, Illinois, Linda Heck of Urbandale, Anne Nordquist and husband, Gary of West Des Moines; five sons, Michael of Downers Grove, Illinois, Chuck of Arlington, Virginia, Dan of Adel, Peter of Olathe, Kansas, Joe of Urbandale; one sister, Anne Murray of Richfield, Ohio; 18 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Memorial contributions may be made to St. John’s Catholic Church, Clarion.

© Wright County Monitor 2001