Frey, Ramona Marie Krampert Age 84, passed January 23, 2021. Born to Myrtle & Lud Krampert on January 24, 1937. Survived by her husband Paul Frey, daughters Carol Frey & Lisa Conant, son-in-law Diccon Conant, and grandsons Michael Frey & Myles Conant. Preceded in death by her parents and brothers, Karl & Richard Krampert. Memorial service planned for summer. In lieu of flowers, memorials preferred to the Salvation Army.

Ramona was born at home on her parents’ dairy farm in rural Wisconsin during the Great Depression. She walked to a one-room schoolhouse for grades 1-8 before graduating from New Richmond High School in 1954 in a class of 81 students. During a family stay in Texas, she considered her opportunity to attend Brownsville High School for 12 weeks in 1952 a highlight given the Spanish-speaking community whom she got to know. Growing up with an older and younger brother, Ramona noticed that boys got to wear more comfortable clothes, have more fun, and do more things than girls. Although she preferred helping her family by cooking for thrashing crews during harvest season rather than milking cows, Ramona defied many traditional roles by attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and working in a career as a fashion and furniture artist in Minneapolis, even after she married Paul Frey in 1960. After the birth of their first daughter, Carol (1964) drawing under deadlines for newspapers gave way to free-lance art and a return to college as a non-traditional student at the University of Minnesota. Working around a prohibition against noticeable pregnancy for student teachers, Ramona burned her bangs while bending over a flame to shape gold in a jewelry design course when she was expecting her second daughter, Lisa. When the birth (1967) impeded completion of her jewelry, Ramona submitted a photo of her baby for the final and got an A. Her husband also defied traditional roles by supporting Ramona’s completion of her BS in Art Education, and history minor, by working a 3-11 pm shift so he could care for Carol during the days while Ramona took classes. With the “baby bust” of “Generation X” in progress by the time Ramona graduated in 1968, full-time positions teaching art or social studies were nowhere to be found in the metro area. Ramona opted to use her degree by capitalizing on the flexibility of working as a substitute teacher in high schools, where she regularly advanced her students’ vocabulary by describing their behavior in words that they had to look up in the dictionary. Over a decade of “subbing” gave Ramona insider intelligence about who the best teachers were, and her daughters benefitted from the “social capital” of the “privileged parent,” who would not leave a principal’s office until he changed an unfortunate classroom assignment. When she needed a break from working with teenagers, Ramona got a job selling baby pictures at hospitals and passport pictures in government agencies. Enjoying this easy sales pitch for several years (what mother is not going to buy her baby’s first picture?), Ramona went back to “subbing” after the hospitals decided that nurses would no longer take the newborns’ pictures, and Photo Fast expected its sales representatives to take the baby pictures (with a big box camera that went right over the cribs). Over the years, Ramona also worked in a Hennepin County art rehabilitation program, organized community education, “temped” at Augsburg Publishing in the braille and books-on-tape department and served as a delegate in party conventions as part of maintaining her teaching credentials.

 In her personal life, Ramona was beloved by many: her parents, brothers, husband, children, grandchildren, extended family, and many friends and colleagues. Despite being a part of the “Silent generation” that “pioneered” divorce in America, she remained happily married to Paul for over 60 years. For this, Ramona would partially credit her cooking, Paul’s brown eyes, and their dual willingness to pursue both joint and individual hobbies and activities throughout their lives. Paul went on hunting and fishing trips on his own and with his buddies, and Ramona took trips to visit friends and “cities” on her own or with Carol and/or Lisa. Ramona’s cooking was so amazing that Lisa did not learn how to cook until she was living away from home and had no choice but to cook for herself. But back at “home,” when Mozart is in the house, what amateur is going to play a tune? As a mother, Ramona was a “supernova,” raising her daughters to “go to college,” pursue their dreams, and explore the world, as she did so avidly herself, traveling all over the US first with her family as a child, and later with her young friends, Paul, and her own family. Ramona ultimately travelled to all 50 US states, most Canadian provinces, Mexico, Germany, Austria, China, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Vietnam, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway. Ramona was a “social introvert,” content to spend time alone drawing, painting, reading, or walking, yet being so friendly that she made new friends wherever she went her entire life, while also maintaining friendships from her childhood and young adult life all the way into her mid-80s. Harboring the “thrill-seeking” gene, Ramona loved rollercoasters, white-water rafting, snow-mobiling, para-sailing from a boat on a bay in Mexico, and flying in all kinds of planes, from piper cubs as a young child to gliders, helicopters, and commercial jet-liners as an adult. She went water-skiing for decades, even going over a jump. As a grandmother, Ramona claimed to be better with older children, but she was a baby-whisperer with a colicky newborn Myles, and she inspired a steady stream of joy, giggles, and cuddles from Michael and Myles as toddlers. She helped Carol and Lisa juggle contemporary parenting, accompanying Carol to Vietnam for Michael’s adoption, and taking care of an 18-month-old Myles in Strasbourg, France for a few weeks, when Lisa had a balance on a research grant that she was scheduled to “use or lose” to interview officials at the European Court of Human Rights. With her height, blue eyes, and little blond grandson in tow, Ramona unfortunately was routinely mistaken as a German, and was therefore greeted with far more glares than any grandmother deserves. German is not the most popular national identity in this northeastern region of France, which came under alternating German and French control during the course of three wars, ultimately reverting to France after World War II.

 Ramona gave back to the community with voluntary work, walking door-to-door in Robbinsdale collecting donations for organizations such as the American Heart Association and bringing homebound people their “meals-on-wheels” lunches. Ramona volunteered for events supporting AFS high school exchange students from all over the world through activities sponsored by the First Congregational Church of Robbinsdale. When Lisa went to Germany as a Rotary high school exchange student, Ramona and Paul hosted a Rotary high school exchange student from Sweden and a privately arranged high school exchange student from Germany, in addition to providing a home away from home for Lisa’s German “host sister” who was living in Princeton, MN for an exchange year and later three young German friends who came to Minneapolis as au pairs. In recent years, New Brighton gave her the “Adopt-a-park membership of one” award for her constant efforts to throw away the trash others left behind in Hansen Park, where she enjoyed walking. Never one to waste anything, she salvaged useful items, washed them, and donated them, with one exception: For the disc players who did not fetch discs that went astray, she sold the discs back at $5 a piece. She soon stopped having to retrieve abandoned discs from the bushes and woods. Also in New Brighton, Ramona enjoyed being part of the congregation and bible study at the United Church of Christ, which she missed once the pandemic condemned gatherings to “Zoom” video-conferences. Ramona did not do Zoom, or computers and smart phones generally.

Having experienced a healthy, independent life, Ramona encountered several difficulties in her last months. She broke her hip in late August, which necessitated surgery, hospitalization, and rehabilitation at a transitional care unit, which was all made more challenging by the pandemic, with its strict visiting policies to outright ban on visitors. After she was home recovering, a therapist noticed a facial asymmetry which corresponded to weakness on her left side, prompting evaluation for stroke. Instead, the MRI revealed 2 masses, in her lung and brain, and Ramona was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. This was a jarring surprise for a woman who had never smoked and had no obvious exposures to asbestos or radon. The impact of these tumors was momentarily checked with radiation and rehabilitation at another transitional care unit. Ramona displayed her irrepressible spirt by setting off to walk home, after she had waited “too long” for radiation. She was a few blocks away before she got “apprehended” by panicking nurses. We had hoped that an oral chemotherapy targeted to attack cancer cells with a specific mutation (therefore usually well tolerated, unlike systemic chemo administered via IVs), might be able to extend a good quality of life for 18 months - 2 years. Unfortunately, this treatment was not effective. Paul provided home hospice care with support of Heartland Hospice, Carol, and Michael. Lisa travelled back from Denver to help in the days before and after Ramona passed peacefully in her sleep at home, with some favorite country-western music playing. In those final weeks, Ramona retained her good cheer, observing that she’d had a good life and was “too old to die young,” and she was blessed with the faith that she could now be reunited with other loved ones.

Published on January 27, 2021