Hundreds of Quad-Citians gathered at one local icon, Modern Woodmen Park, to celebrate the life of another.
Helen Wundram with son Tim Wundram visit with John Gardner, former publisher of the Quad-City Times, during a celebration of life of the late Bill Wundram, beloved Times columnist, Sunday at Modern Woodmen Park. Bill's family and friends hosted the gathering to celebrate the life of a man who loved his Quad-Cities and enlightened local readers for decades with his gift for writing and his knack for news.
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Steve Trainor talks with Helen Wundram wife of late Bill Wundram, beloved Quad-City Times columnist, celebrated his life Sunday at Modern Woodmen Park. Bill's family and friends hosted the gathering to celebrate the life of a man who loved his Quad-Cities and enlightened local readers for decades with his gift for writing and his knack for news.
Helen Wundram, wife of Bill Wundram visits with Debbie Anselm, publisher of the Quad-City Times during a celebration of life of the late Bill Wundram, beloved Times columnist, Sunday at Modern Woodmen Park.
Bill Wundram's great grandchildren Porter and Brooks Wundram wear red clown noses during a celebration of Bill Wundram's life Sunday at Modern Woodmen Park.
Bill Wundram columns — a sampling
The longtime Quad-City Times columnist has released a book of his favorite columns.
Some columns stick with you. After 20 or so years I’m still reminded, without a blush, of the unforgettable (I call it that) piece I wrote abo…
Most people don’t know there are so many angels (I call them good Samaritans) around whose main job is to make sure you don’t get too comforta…
We all agree that chicken noodle soup is good for everything. It is the elixir for all that ails. It will stop a running nose. It will ease th…
The other night, I couldn’t sleep. It was the sound of falling snow that did it. I knew that it was snow because there really wasn’t a sound. …
Our family is among members of a shrinking minority. We still have a landline phone in our home. We also have two tiny palm-size black cellpho…
Flying is fun and exciting; oh, yeah! Follow the agony of four people and a little boy trying to reach the Quad-City International Airport in …
I hate to have the Christmas season end. The lull is unbearable, and this zero weather makes life even more drudged. The Christmas cards are l…
River Drive is smiling again. The rows of candy cane stripes are back on the pillars of the big house. The stripes have become a holiday beac…
Every Christmas time, I tap out my versions of the holiday. Some new, some old. This, my 2017 offering:
They were concerned at the St. Louis preemie hospital unit that Nick might not make it for a year. He was so tiny at birth that he would fit i…
Every lawn and evergreen tree, every rooftop and fence post, glows with Christmas lights. But few know to credit the whole explosion of holida…
During an idling evening, Tom Otting was wondering how life existed for kids without electronic games and smartphones and tweets. “What did we…
“It used to be …” That’s great-grandpa talk. You heard it every time the young ’uns gathered around the old boy. He’d chew on his cigar and ta…
More than any time of the year, I like Christmas. November is a nap, but December is a thrill. Christmas trees are turning the winter into bri…
Life has its moments and its careers. Take a look at Clarence Darrow, the respected long-time Rock Island lawyer and what have you.
We sat at the kitchen table the other night. We had candlelight. Being the emotional type, I was teary-eyed. I get that way easily. “It’s just…
Twenty-two years ago, Bob Gaston gathered a handful of musicians and said that he was organizing a band. Gaston was a good musician, but he h…
Ah, huzzah! The turkey note, with its Thanksgiving doggerel, is still alive. Well, barely. A week ago today, I moaned that this year I have re…
This is a time when I will eat my words. On a May morning in 2013, fire gutted Davenport’s Credit Island Lodge. I was convinced that the place…
What gives with this weather? Big snowflakes were falling from the sky on Sunday morning, and now they talk of 50 degrees by midweek. Last w…
Jim Iverson, Davenport, smiled. He was climbing into his Ford Taurus and it ticked in his mind that this may have been his 600th cancer-driving trip.
It was a mild Nov. 11 day, shirtsleeve weather. Life was good in the Quad-Cities, or so it seemed on Armistice Day of Nov. 11, 1940. A south w…
If you have a problem … let’s say your car breaks down and you have trouble getting to work. Or, let’s say you’re sick, at home with the crud.…
Odd, isn’t it, how the face of a city can change? I strolled along the 100 block of West 3rd in sunny downtown Davenport and realized the tru…
Long years ago, next to Christmas and the Easter bunny, the happiest holiday for kids was Halloween. Little kids — I suppose that meant 10 a…
There was no creature in Quad-City dogdom compared to Bozo. He was the consummate downtown pet and panhandler, whose favorite dish was chili a…
IOWA CITY – Every once in a rare while, you come across a scene that you can’t describe. I got the chills. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Fro…
One spring morning in 2002, Dave Phillips startled the worshippers at Asbury United Methodist Church in Bettendorf. He marched to the pulpit i…
The date of Oct. 15 is not to be forgotten by a Davenport couple.
PASTA had not been invented. It was macaroni or spaghetti. There were still some corner grocery stores, but supermarkets like Eagle, Geifman a…
If you see Linda Cook, it is probably at the movies. Her byline is familiar because she is our Quad-City Times movie critic and in a week she …
It seems longer but it’s really only 55 miles, maybe more or less depending where you start in the Quad-Cities. I will not follow the advice …
These are days when I get two or three calls, asking for the route to see the best northwoods autumn color.
To win an Emmy is top drawer, the big enchilada, even if it doesn’t have all the glitz and glamour of a California auditorium. St. Louis was g…
Davenport has hit the New York stage. A drama with its heart in a big brick house on Davenport’s McClellan Boulevard has been making the round…
The other day, I was writing a tidbit about class reunions. Once, our class had its 60th. Not many of my classmates are left now, and come to …
“Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd …” After 3,000 or more times, that is still music to Steve Batterson's ears. Steve c…
Contact Bill Wundram at 563-383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.
So this is Friday, and I always thought of Friday as payday. Once, everyone got paid on Friday, and we would cash our checks and get real fold…
This morning at breakfast, when you spread strawberry jam on that neatly sliced slab of white toast, you should bow your head to Otto Francis …
Last Sunday, we made our annual pilgrimage to the big church dinner in Petersville, Iowa — not far from Villanova. Steve Burke, a husky farmer…
On Labor Day weekend, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has always played the Quad-Cities. No more. “The greatest show on earth” i…
Odd, isn’t it, how something as inconsequential as an old dog tag can stir up a brou-ha-ha? Habitat ReStore in Davenport came up with a rare 1…
For more than 60 years, I have often wondered whatever happened to a little boy who had been trapped in a deep hole for an hour-and-a half ’wa…
The little boy sidled up. He volunteered that his name was Sam Bawden, and that he was 9 years old and from the state of Washington. Little Sa…
Fido, Rex or Spot, maybe it once was your dog tag. Among the items to report in today’s trivia is a dog tag stamped 1895. That is 122 years ag…
As one of my faithful correspondents reminds me, it’s that time of the year when the Darwin Awards honor the least among us. Selection is bas…
John Schultz does what most people not dare do. He does the Quad-City Times Bix 7 backwards. He goes up and down seven miles of steep hills an…
Twenty years ago … the years pass so swiftly. But Bob and Eva Christiansen of California remembered it well this week. Twenty years ago was wh…
Dr. Edwin Motto, the kid next door, never dreamed he’d be in charge of the teams that have taken the pulse of 500,00 sweating, exhausted peo…
Let’s clear up the vision people have of one of Davenport’s most famous native sons, Bix Beiderbecke. He was not an alcoholic, as so many clai…
I sit here, studying the computer screen’s crop of a day’s emails. After a recent column on my loss of driving privileges, responses have been…
Hail, hail, the band’s all here. Oom–pah-pah. Community bands are growing, and so are their audiences. The community band is a cultural link w…
Fate has cruelly slipped into my life. In all truth, I have the whim-whams. I am forbidden to drive, no longer in possession of a valid drive…
In view of the serious goings-on in the world — booming fireworks sales in Iowa, the budget crisis in Illinois and all our torn-up streets — …
It’s the grand opening night of The Mark of the Quad-Cities, date May 28, 1993. Crowds outside are anxious. Two guys elbow their way through. …
It says something — although I'm not exactly sure what — that you can cruise the streets of Rock Island in a 1923 Velie touring sedan and nobo…
EDITOR'S NOTE: In honor of the Fourth of July, Bill shares a civics lesson from one of the early kings of comedy:
Back in 1943, I was the classmate of a fellow named Herman Sitrick. We became pretty good friends at old Davenport High School, now Central. W…
There was a slightly hollow sound when taps was played at Memorial Day services this year at Rock Island National Cemetery, Arsenal Island.
Among the agonies of life is to forget someone’s name.
Car collectors will be bug-eyed this week when they swarm the tiny town of Yarmouth, Iowa, which has a bulging population of 74. Beginning a…
Years fly away like the pages of a calendar. Still, it doesn’t seem right that Bill Sackter of Iowa City has been dead this long. It is 34 yea…
This column is because I never said thank you enough to my Dad. This is from me, because he has been gone for a long time, and may this catch …
It was an eye-popping sight, 11 carousel horses, side-by-side and sparkling like diamonds. They were near sea horses and pandas and zebras and…
A summer night is as idyllic as a poem by Carl Sandburg, “Shine on, O moon of summer.” To have a summer night blessed by an outdoor band conce…
We arrived early in Welton, Iowa, about 5 p.m. last Tuesday afternoon. No one was in sight, but, within 30 minutes, the happy, hungry multitud…
Some things are certain about Davenport Fire Department: They cherish the old things, like their retired firefighters. They believe in keeping…
This couple invited us for a Sunday afternoon barbecue at their place, a classy home and garden. Besides, they would pick us up. They were rig…
If you mention backpacks to your great-grandparents or even grandparents, they likely will slip into that stern tone of voice and say, “Now b…
Tonight is the night for the monthly reunion of the teachers and principals and whoever had a pedagogy connection with Davenport West High Sch…
The first time our dog Molly saw a fox in our driveway, she was scared to death. Molly is a gentle little dog, about 10 pounds, and so easy-go…
Tormenting tales linger this Memorial Day weekend about the death of Tech. Sgt. Harold “Peaner” Ripslinger, whose death remains a classic Worl…
Life is long and short. It’s all in how you look at it. At my age, I look at it both ways. It seems like just yesterday that I graduated fro…
A few of us were gathering at an eatery to say “happy birthday” to Sister Ludmilla Benda, the patron saint of the hungry in the Quad-Cities. S…
You have entertained us from generation to generation. You were part of the American way for families. Children of all ages were breathless w…
No one is counting but my dad and me, and he really isn’t keeping track of such things because he is long gone. He was proud that he worked 24…
I thought of my mother Saturday morning when I was sitting on the top step of the staircase in my living room, trying to pull on some stubbo…
One sunny Saturday afternoon several summers ago, the Quad-Cities River Bandits gave away Wundram bobbleheads to the first 1,000 in line at th…
He was old. There was no question about that, once you took a glance. Creases ran down the sides of his mouth to make rivulets for his tears. …
So it’s the second day of May. Significant, to some … snow and circuses in particular. Most important was May 1. On May 1 of any decade, dozen…
From New Year's Eve until returning as the daffodils bloomed, we spent the winter in Florida. I have found it to be a most hospitable place, e…
Davenport’s riverfront will be gaudy with prancing ponies when a two-story carousel goes round-and-round this springtime. It will be a giant m…
When a newcomer arrives in town to stay, you want them to feel cozy, just like home. Follow this learned guide to becoming a true Quad-Citian:
Long live spring! It’s here to stay, and it’s not going to leave. When we headed south on New Year's Eve, the gray weather was like mush. I pr…
Here I am, delighted with my two favorite Christmas gifts. They were in big packages. One was a My Pillow; the other was a waste basket. You k…
A lull sets in around the house after Christmas. The holly-jolly wrappings have long been cleared from the living room floor and stuffed into…
(With updating, versions of this column have appeared each holiday season for a dozen years.)
It happened before the deluge of snow, with an ending that left everyone as happy as an unexpected gift under the tree.
Now, I am an old man. I never thought of myself that way. I always believed that I was young as springtime. But now I am an old man with a can…
More than any other time of year, I love this one — and it’s because of Christmas trees. There is a magic in a Christmas tree. The past week h…
Growing numbers of Quad-Citians reach the magic age of 100. Maybe it's something in the water. But Walter Haedrich is an exceptional centenari…
Let’s all take pity on mail carriers this week. Their feet will be freezing in the snow and their fingers will be nipped by cold. This week m…
She had been staring at me over a chocolate soda. It was across a holiday throng at Lagomarcino’s in the Village of East Davenport, and I did…
While wandering the magic land of Wallace's Gardens — in a blow-away trance of 14,000 poinsettias — something brushed against my leg. “Oh, tha…
Shovel a path for Santa. It’s going to be a white Christmas. The odds will shiver your timbers, says Steve Gottschalk, semi-professional weat…
In all the babble and debate over what to do with the Davenport riverfront, one lonely pocket of joy has been overlooked. What are those plann…
This date is significant on the Quad-City calendar. Cary Grant died here, 30 years ago, Nov. 29, 1986, of a stroke. It was headline news and …
Graduates of old Davenport High (now Central) may worry that the dated Blue Devil of their rah-rah, sis-boom bah high school majesty, is abou…
This is three big ker-plunks. It can only be told in ker-plunks because three is the number of times that I fell out of bed last Saturday nigh…
It’s always been a Blue Devil on the T-shirts or the posters or football helmets or anything that says Davenport High School (now Central). It…
The idea was to slouch in a soft chair and watch a golf match on TV. I had never heard of the players, most of whom look so young that they mu…
Back in 2007, when Hillary Clinton was first casting an eye on the White House, she visited Davenport and this noospaper. We chatted briefly…
A few weeks ago, when they were beginning to tear Jumer’s Castle Lodge to pieces, Evie Plambeck of Davenport called. “How can I get six bricks…
They are ugly things about the size of a softball and are commonly called hedge apples, hedge balls or monkey brains. The more correct name is…
Button up your overcoat. It sounds like a bad-d-d winter is bearing down on us. My personal weatherman, Steve Gottschalk, the small-town sage …
The act of remembering comes down to a pile of rubble on Utica Ridge Road in Bettendorf. Jumer’s Castle Lodge, once a premier Quad-City hotel …
It makes me feel so old. But I was here in 1945, the last time our Cubbies were in the World Series. I wasn’t at the game; I was working at th…
In this spooky season, Phyllis Weedon’s hobby could give you the heebie-jeebies. She makes life-size skeletons out of plastic gallon milk jug…
Old filing cabinets yield secrets. Jay Sommers, general counsel for Joe Whitty — our jovial Happy Joe — was clearing out an old filing cabinet…
In the beginning, there was only one. He was the only full-time cardiovascular physician in the Quad-Cities, a tough challenge for Dr. Philip …
You won’t notice, unless you have a magnifying glass, the teeny type at the bottom of today’s front page of the Quad-City Times. It’s a volume…
If you’re old enough, you might remember Patricia “Tish” White Barry, who just died at the mature age of 93. She was considered the most gorge…
Knock off the babble over debates and grunt over a couple of pot-bellied pigs from Clinton. They were married! If there such a thing as pigs b…
Truth can easily escape. One persistent urban myth surrounds the old Natatorium, once Davenport's block-long downtown swimming pool at the foo…
Hey, the mail carrier is here. It’s always exciting when the mail arrives even though the mail now may be email. My batch of mail can be a me…
In the past year or so, I have come to appreciate a new friend. It is my cane. Some people might think of a cane as a helpful nuisance. I put …
Sunday, in one of those bizarre coincidences, Cal Werner and I were sipping Arnold Palmers when we heard that golfing legend Arnold Palmer had…
At this time of year, I get emails and phone calls asking for directions to the glorious paintboxes of autumn that I have written about in pa…
Dogs have most every good characteristic except obedience. That, I learned at one of those doggie dips or whatever foolish name they give to t…
Auf Wiedersehen.
Every year about this time, a certain letter can be expected in the mail. The address on the small envelope is handwritten, in pen. The letter…
Red, white and blue runs through the veins of a husky fellow they call the Flag Man. Larry Eckhardt lives in Little York, Illinois, and defin…
The day after the long weekend … We’re all tuckered out after that final gasp of summer. We couldn’t get the charcoal lit in the grill and onc…
If you’re cruising through eastern Iowa on U.S. 30, your eyes will pop at the enormous eagle and American flag in little Lowden, Iowa. It’s 10…
Neat people are nit-pickers who snatch up every gum wrapper they see on the sidewalk. They keep close tabs on their checkbooks and know what h…
Look around — in the grocery store, at your favorite restaurant, in the pew across the aisle at church. There's no denying that more and mor…
The river was drowsy — slow on this gray summer day. It was a time to reminisce about Issy, likely the most unforgettable character that Gary …
A brimmed cap is shading his rosy face. Chuck Cox of DeWitt is standing like a carnival pitchman alongside one of this three tenderloin traile…
How come we don’t have as many laughs as we used to? The old-timers who are left stand around and mope. I don’t know don’t know why. Maybe we …
“When men were men, the choice was Sen-Sen.”
So this is fair time, everywhere. You will flock to the midway — like lemmings rushing to the sea — to gorge on corndogs and funnel cakes. Yo…
The recent call was from Burbank, California, Walt Disney Studios. What would a magical place like that want of me? The caller was Edward Ova…
Reunions are wonderful. They are a revel of flashbacks:
One of America’s favorite soda fountains — in all its 150-year-old gee-gawed glory — has been sold and is to be reopened by the middle of Aug…
Oh, gosh! It looked like strawberry Kool-Aid in a fish bowl, but it was not what you’d expect kids selling in a corner lemonade stand. Brett…
Oh, unhappy day for children of all ages. The circus, a Quad-City Labor Day peanuts-and-popcorn tradition for 23 years, isn’t coming to town …
Welcome back to our little furry friend who hasn’t been in this column since early spring. The biggest news of the summer around our place is …
It’s July, and any week now it will be August. But hang on tightly to July, our high noon of the year, 31 days of hot afternoons when it’s go…
Quad-City Times columnist Bill Wundram’s private collection of steamboat memorabilia will make its public debut this weekend.
On a recent afternoon, while elbowing the counter at Lago's and waiting for my egg salad sandwich, the song “Lollipop” wafted in the backgroun…
The hostas by front porch are in long-stemmed bloom. The tree in the front yard is touching the rooftop. The big frame house, the hostas and…
If they put me in charge of things … I would make the print on everything bigger. It’s long overdue that things become easier to read.
No one calls him “Little Dog” anymore. It was an ignominious nickname for Tyrone Orr, a quiet gentleman who most everyone in the Quad-Cities s…
I have always had an over-the shoulder view about ghosts and things that go bump in the night, but an eerie incident happened over the weeken…
The auctioneer at the antique house in Dallas cried, “Sold, for $250,000, to the gentleman over there.” The "gentleman over there” had flown f…
Pets in heaven? Our Florida preacher, Vic Willis, had a recent sermon, “One big question.” It had many worldly specifics, but after the sermon…
Most people, I would hope, think of their dads today. It’s Father’s Day. If he’s gone, you may have forgotten your dad’s warmth and ways … but…
Once, downtown Davenport’s 3rd Street was brilliant with the marquee lights of five movie theaters. None are left as movie houses. The old RKO…
Cheap eats, that’s what some people call the hot dog. It’s such a degraded delicacy that we ate 20 billion of them last year. Next to the game…
(Nobody has ever accused me of being shy, so I can't help but humbly pass along the very kind — and undeserved — bravo sent my way recently b…
The concept is so simple, a plain wooden board, painted black, with lines for messages to be written in chalk. Each line begins with the pre-p…
I cannot by any stretch of the imagination envision a day when every woman of the house will revert to the days of every-nook-and-cranny sprin…
Any day now, Mark Gould will be getting his monthly shipment of 144 St. Joseph statues. That is a gross, or 12 dozen, for people who are tryin…
Dr. Mike Giudici, who is an internationally known cardio-physiologist, hasn’t lost his sense of humor despite a harrowing bicycle accident. H…
They trailed along the roadway in twos and threes, some of the girls in bonnets and the boys in bib overalls, on their way to school. Many wo…
Steve and Kelli Grubbs — who are in the public eye in the political and business scene in the Quad-Cities — packed their four kids in the car …
Fifteen years ago, almost to this day, our experience with a mysterious artist in the woods had its onset. There is an answer, now, that took …
The brass fire pole, shiny symbol of fire stations everywhere, is here to stay in Davenport. Firefighters are going to keep zipping down pol…
There I sat, sinking into my leather seat, waiting for the movie to begin. It was like sitting in a living room chair. I was slicing into a 7…
Sister Ludmilla didn’t want any fuss. She had a casual attitude, “Doesn’t everyone reach 90?” Luddy hit that landmark last Saturday (April 30)…
So this is the first of May. Some call it May Day. I’ve always had a spring passion to visit Maysville on May Day, so I called on this pocket …
On a dull afternoon last week, the heavy brass doors were wide open. They were still shiny entries to the building I will always call Davenpor…
Who needs algebra? Personally, I don’t need algebra to write a column. In fact, I can’t think of a single thing that I need algebra for. But …
Stretched out in a wicker chair on our screened porch, I lazily watched the pink streaks of an April sunset. The leaves of our Japanese maple…
Well, hi-diddle-dee-dee, it’s ME, back on Page A2 of this noospaper after a long hiatus in Florida. See, I promised to bring back warm days.…
In the cold morning darkness of this day 66 years ago, Roy Porter was in the midst of horror. It is an anniversary that still makes him shudde…
So you think it’s cold-d-d these mornings? It’s sissy stuff compared to the snow-shocked frozen January of 1936. Stories are told and retold o…
Forget about getting to the church on time. This was a handy way of getting married. “My grandparents, John Hoffmann and Ethel Wuestenberg, w…
Because of a terrible 1980 automobile crash on Interstate 80 in Bettendorf, a man's life flip-flopped in an amazing way. His journey took hi…
There I stood on the railroad train platform in Savanna, Ill., with a very small portable typewriter in one hand and a suitcase carrying two …
Now that it's here, we are convinced — despite fair-to-middlin' temperatures for late December — that snow will be on the ground until the ro…
A sleety-sloppy lull has set in. The excitement of the last few days is gone. We ho-hum at the world and go back to work. New Year’s Eve is s…
Christmas is past. Barney doesn’t remember any hint of the holiday. In the haze of his memory, the holiday was a chill fog that was going to …
The house on this Christmas day will be quiet. Our children, now adults, have long since left the nest, so there is a certain melancholy witho…
“Tell me a story of Christmas,” the little girl said.
Dear Rick and Dan:
I walk through the restaurants started by your folks and want to remind you of the night when one of your servers dumped a bowl of hot vegetable soup in my lap. I want to remind you, too, that I am one of your oldest living customers.
Sixty-six years ago, the Riefe family began business in a little root beer stand where Bettendorf is building that super-span across the Mississippi River. Bettendorf had a little less than 5,000 people then.
So much about Christmas is tradition, and so many stories have been hanging around our family for a generation or two:
I love to collect snippets of the season. Some from writers, some from readers. The first is from the late Erma Bombeck, author of “At Wit’s …
(With the misery and death and chaos in the Middle East, I found myself reaching for a column I wrote a decade-and-a-half ago.)
He was a big hunk of a man, robust with a smile that could reach the North Pole. Don Pearson was loaded with so many Christmas gifts that it t…
In 1945, when I was still wet behind the years, my city editor suggested I go out and write a feature story. I was excited by the idea, beca…
This is you on a Monday morning. You’re cruising along on an Iowa interstate. There’s not much to see except the concrete until you come upon …
In recent years, as my hair grows thinner and grayer, I say the same thing over and over to my wife, “This is the year we will not have a Chr…
Lately, people have been asking what happened to the little old woman in the bonnet who rang a Salvation Army bell at the big kettle at Nort…
Helmut Welke of Bettendorf didn’t want Christmas gifts. When he retired from Deere & Co. after 38 years, he didn’t want any farewell prese…
At the foot of Spencer Road in Pleasant Valley, within a stone's throw of the river, is a neighborhood of 11 houses, mostly the same size. Or…
It was the best of days, it was the worst of days. It sounds like “A Tale of Two Cities.” This is a far cry from that classic. It is a tale of…
Bix might blow a sour note if he knew that a museum was going to be created for him in a former tea room! In a former dive? Fine! But a tea r…
Only in the kindly Midwest would something like this happen. I love it. Arlene Phillips of Davenport tells of traveling south from Rushville,…
