Article published Sunday, August 16, 2009 KATHERINE M. HUBSCHER, 1915-2009 Co-owner of tavern in East Toledo gave food to the hungry
Katherine M. Hubscher, 93, a mainstay of the Birmingham neighborhood of East Toledo who with her son, Mark, co-owned the Rumpus Room, a tavern her father founded, died Wednesday in Orchard Villa, Oregon, of congestive heart failure.
She looked forward every year to the Birmingham Ethnic Festival, which ends tonight. The bar and the old family home, where her son lives, are on Consaul Street in the heart of Birmingham.
"She would hold court at the homestead," her daughter Chris recalled. "And everybody would come up and talk to her. She made sure from her perch on the porch that everything was going right."
Mrs. Hubscher worked through last Thanksgiving, opening the bar at 10 a.m. daily to oversee deliveries of beer and supplies and leaving at 4 p.m.
"If I didn't work, I'd be sitting on a darn old rocking chair," she told The Blade in 2007.
She was born Sept. 20, 1915, the daughter of Magdalena and Frank Rihacek, in the building where her father had started the Rumpus Room, then a bowling alley in those Prohibition days.
Her father later opened the Tivoli Theater across the street, and she worked at the family businesses from a young age. She attended Waite High School and was on the swim team.
In the 1940s, she married Julius "Hub" Hubscher, who repaired clocks and watches, their daughter said. They opened a shop in Genoa, which she helped run, and still kept the books for her family's businesses.
"She owned businesses before it was conceivable that women should even own businesses," her daughter said.
Her husband died in 1968, and she sold the business. She returned to the Rumpus Room, which became a bar after Prohibition. Patrons called her "Katie" or "Mama Kate."
She made soup every Monday - Hungarian chicken noodle, chili, vegetable beef, and potato were among the specialties - and gave it away to patrons.
"The only rule was that if you had the soup, you had to wash the bowl and the spoon when you were done," her daughter said.
Mrs. Hubscher helped manage the kitchen for the annual festival at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church near Bono, where she was a member. She lived in Jerusalem Township and helped at the township food pantry every month and made deliveries to the home-bound.
"She hated to see people go hungry," her daughter said. "To meet her was to immediately love her, because she was just that kind of person. If you talked to her, she'd give you a hug when you left."
She was inducted into the Birmingham Hall of Fame in 1999.
Surviving are her daughters, Christina Szabo, Kathleen Kerekes, and Elizabeth Dempsey; son, Mark Hubscher; stepsons, Chuck and David Hubscher; eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
The body will be in the Hoeflinger-Bolander Funeral Home, Oregon, after 3 p.m. Tuesday, with a prayer service at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday in the mortuary. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Elliston Road in Jerusalem Township.
The family suggests tributes to the Jerusalem Township Food Pantry or Hospice of Northwest Ohio. Permanent Link
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