Beloved Q-C columnist Bill Wundram has died

Bill Wundram was a legend.

The prolific columnist with a gift for storytelling died Tuesday. One of his closest friends and colleagues said Wundram remarked on his deathbed that he was, "ready to cross the river."

To countless readers and colleagues, Wundram was as big a force as the Mississippi River itself.

"We have lost a legend, a gigantic talent, an irreplaceable treasure, a dear friend to multitudes over generations," said Dan Hayes, former executive editor of the Quad-City Times. "We have been lucky to breathe the same air as this great man."

"Wundram was a tremendous writer and an even better personality," said Don Doxsie, former Times sports writer and editor. "He illuminated every room he ever walked into. He was impossible to dislike."

"Readers felt they knew Bill, and in most ways they did," said longtime reporter and columnist Alma Gaul. "His picture was above his column so he was easily recognized, and he shared his own joys and sorrows as well as those of others.

"Having been born in Davenport and in the news business since his teens, he knew this community inside and out. Have a question? Ask Bill. He knew everything. His institutional memory was unequaled."

Ed Froehlich, retired director of the Quad-City Times Bix 7 road race, said that Wundram “was a giver and never a taker. He always wanted people to be happy.”

Former retired Quad-City Times copy editor Deb Brasier, who edited thousands of Wundram columns, penned this obituary for him:

For more than 70 years, Bill Wundram was the voice of Davenport, writing about its triumphs and travails as a cub reporter, editor and columnist for the Quad-City Times and its predecessors.

Tuesday, his voice was silenced. He was 98 years old.

William Louis Wundram was born Dec. 21, 1924, in Davenport. One of the standing jokes in his repertoire of self-deprecating humor was that he was short because he had been born on the shortest day of the year. His parents, William and Edna Wundram, had two daughters before their only son arrived.

Wundram grew up on the west side of Davenport, a middle-class childhood that provided fodder for his daily columns and books. Among his recurring themes were the importance to family life of kitchen tables, front porches and back alleys. He was president of the Class of 1943 at Davenport High School; in 2001, he was inducted into the Hall of Honor at what now is Central High School.

Wundram briefly served in the U.S. Army and, for an even briefer period of time, attended Augustana College in Rock Island. But an irresistible romance with the printed word derailed his academic career. On March 20, 1944, at the age of 19, he became a reporter for the Davenport Democrat and Leader, a predecessor of the Quad-City Times. Soon, he was immersed in the world of no-holds-barred, “Front Page” type of journalism that characterized the era.

Over the next decades, Wundram filled a variety of writing and editing jobs in the newsroom. He found his niche in what once was known as “soft news” — and his insatiable curiosity and boundless enthusiasm for telling the stories of the people, places and the quirky side of life in the Quad-Cities brought the features/lifestyles sections of the newspaper in Davenport, Iowa, to national prominence.

In 1979, then-editor Forrest Kilmer decided the best showcase for Wundram’s talents was as a columnist. He soon was writing columns seven days a week — an unheard-of feat in the world of journalism. In recent years, his columns appeared five days a week on Page A2 of the Quad-City Times — and often rose to front-page prominence. The stream of story ideas and tips coming from his office was endless.

Wundram jokingly referred to himself as the “grandpa” of the news staff, and his door was always open to reporters, photographers and editors who wanted to talk through an idea or concern, pick his brain for story angles, listen to his tales of Davenport’s past, or simply chat.

For 70 years, Wundram was married to the former Helen Voorhees. How they met was a classic Wundram story: In November 1949, after enjoying a free meal at a Davenport fire house, he slid down a recently waxed fireman’s pole, crashing to the concrete floor 20 feet below. His shattered left leg and wrenched right kneecap put him in the hospital, where he met a pretty red-haired student nurse. They were married Nov. 30, 1952, and had three children; their eldest son, Tim, and daughter, Rebecca. Their youngest child, Peter, died in 1998 at the age of 36.

Bill and Helen Wundram were partners in a lifetime of adventures, from meandering trips through the small towns and back roads of Iowa, to buying and remodeling houses in need of their special brand of TLC — only to move on to the next challenge once the makeover was complete.

The Wundrams passed the coldest months of winter in Englewood, Fla., where he for many years set up his laptop computer in the spare bedroom of their condominium to send back a stream of columns. He couldn’t bear to not be writing.

Chief among the adventures they shared were countless hours under the canvas as he indulged his fascination with the circus. He was on a first-name basis with the stars of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and a welcomed visitor to Clown Alley.

Among the many tributes to Wundram’s newspaper career were the unofficial designation, in 2004, of a block of LeClaire Street west of the Quad-City Times as Wundram Way and, in 2010, the creation of a pocket park at East 4th and Iowa streets in his name. But he likely considered to be equally significant the improvements to the city he loved that came about through his chiding question “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”

A bronze statue of Wundram stands outside of the Quad-City Times in an area at East 4th Street and River Drive designated as Bix Plaza. The honor recognizes his involvement in the development of the Quad-City Times Bix 7 road race. The statue is next to that of one of his idols, jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke — another Davenport boy who made good in the bigger world.

More remembrances of Bill will appear in this "noospaper" later this week.