Category Archives: friends

Frances Bronet

Frances Bronet arrived in Eugene ten years ago, as a candidate for dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, and we’ve been friends from the moment we met. Perhaps it was the way that Greta took to her immediately, and was sitting on Frances’s lap within five minutes. (We figured that anyone who could handle a shy three-year-old was the right person to run a design school.) In her years as dean (and one year as interim provost), Frances was a leader, a visionary, an indefatigable schmoozer, and a great representative and advocate for our school. She is the hardest working person I’ve ever known; I recently surprised a university gathering by mentioning that I had once seen her take a few days off. She accomplished all this without losing her perspective or her joie de vivre, and she left behind a school full of colleagues who regarded her as a friend and not just a boss.

the natural elements of Chicago: sky, water, and traffic

Frances began her new job as provost at IIT this summer, and even breaking her collarbone hasn’t slowed her down there. We spent the week staying in their fantastic apartment in a Mies building on Lake Shore Drive (to which Frances would return briefly to sleep when work allowed) which is furnished with two barstools, and an air mattress in every room – she hasn’t had any time to even think about furniture. The contrast of the view was great: leave the hustle and bustle of the big city, and return to your aerie where you see only the primal elements.

Jeff arrived from Eugene while we were there, and it’s likely that with his final move to Chicago, their lives may return to a higher degree of domestic normalcy. We will really miss Jeff and Frances and their children in Eugene, but it was satisfying to see them starting to settle into their new lives.

2018 update: Frances has now moved on to being the president of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Our main concern was whether the president’s house had a driveway where we could park our trailer the next time we visit.

Samantha Duba

The Capistrants

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We have many goals for this trip – getting away from our day-to-day lives for a little perspective, exposing Greta to the incredible variety of places, people and possible lives in this country, eating great barbecue, etc. But a really important one is the chance to reconnect with old friends whom we often haven’t seen in many years, and to see what their lives are like now.

Josh and Laura were grad students at the UO early in this millennium, when Josh was in my housing thesis studio. After graduation they returned to their native Minnesota, and they now live in a lively neighborhood in St. Paul. Laura works for Target as an in-house architect, and Josh combines a wide range of activities in his work, collaborating with other architects on projects, producing extraordinary woodcuts, or doing his own design/build work, at both the architectural and furniture scales (at Crows Nest Design).. They live in a cool old house in a state of constant renovation that will be familiar to most architects.

We’d never met their two great kids – Ike and Thea – before, but had followed their lives from the beginning on Facebook, which was remarkably effective – they didn’t feel like strangers when we arrived. Greta had a wonderful time with them (after being cooped up alone in a little trailer with her dad for a week and a half) – Greta and Ike talked a lot about their writing and reviewed each other’s work, and Greta lost chess games to Thea.

We’re planning on a lot of driveway-camping on this trip, but on this small urban lot, they don’t have a driveway. So Josh asked the adjacent college students for the use of their spot on the alley, and given my cat allergies, I slept in the trailer in my first foray into urban camping, while Greta slept in the house, happily cuddling up with the cats.

A great visit in a great city (or two), and many thanks to all the Capistrants for being such wonderful friends and hosts!

South Dakota roots

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The Minnaert farm

Linda’s parents grew up on farms in Montrose and Madison, in eastern South Dakota. Neither Greta nor I had ever been there before, so we decided to drop in to track down some Minnaert connections. The Zimmer farm in Montrose doesn’t seem to be intact, but we visited the center of town where Greta’s grandfather grew up.

Driving up Valley Road to Madison, we went by the farm where Greta’s great-grandmother lived before moving to the current Minnaert farm in Madison in 1949.

In Madison we found Greta’s great-uncle Joe, who then took us over to the Minnaert family farm, where Greta’s grandmother and her 12 siblings were raised. It is now farmed by Joe’s son Chris, who came in from the fields to meet us. It was really fun meeting them both.

Greta has spent her whole life in the forests and hills of the northwest, and it was amazing to see where her family had come from, how different the environment and their lives are from ours. She was also pleased to find out that she is related to people who have lots of cattle and pigs.