Karen Baumann

For a quiet woman, Karen Ruth Baumann loved to make a racket. Percussion was her thing, whether piano, hammered dulcimer, handbells or steel drums. She was a self-proclaimed vegetarian who nonetheless regularly ate fish and had a secret love affair with bacon. She never considered herself a buttinsky, yet once conspired to set up her elder son with her co-worker, resulting in a marriage that still works after 23 years. She left this earth quite proud of her perfect 1-for-1 matchmaking record. She was born of stout German stock but had a body that failed her in so many ways.

This beautiful contradiction was born July 15, 1937, in Wausau, Wisconsin, to Bertram F. and Dorothy E. Weinkauf. She died March 4 at home in Madison, Wisconsin. She was a 1955 graduate of Wausau High School, attended the Marathon County UW-Extension and then the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in textile chemistry and met her future husband at the Student Union in September 1960. She worked at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene after graduation.

Karen is survived by her husband of almost 55 years, Daniel E. Baumann; sons Jim (Patt) of Carpentersville, Illinois, and Colin (Wanwisa) of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; daughter Jenny (Mark) Terreau of Oshkosh, Wisconsin; beloved granddaughters Marina and Maddie and grandson Ethan. She also is survived by brother, Rick (Marg) Weinkauf, of Orlando, Florida, sisters-in-law Joyce Angeli, Sharon Ehlert, Pat Baumann and Carol Baumann and numerous nieces and nephews.

Karen was a longtime hematology lab tech at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge while she and her family lived in Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Palatine and Elgin, Illinois.
She played handbells with the Chicago Bronze, founded at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois; and after moving to Wisconsin with her husband in retirement played with the Madison Area Concert Handbells and the Handbell Choir at Christ Lutheran Church in Spring Green.

She was a serial volunteer: working with physically and developmentally disabled children during her years in Illinois; helping out at the Gail Borden Library in Elgin, Illinois; chipping in at the Spring Green Community Library; working the gardens at Taliesin in Spring Green; and counseling patients in establishing living wills at Sauk Prairie Hospital in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.

A celebration of life for Karen will begin at 11:00 AM on Saturday, March 12, 2016, at the Cress Center, 6021 University Ave., Madison, WI with a light food reception to follow.

In lieu of flowers, feel free to make a donation to the Alzheimer's Association at alz.org or, in Karen's words, "organizations dedicated to fighting human misery or the suffering of nature at man's hand."

Cress Center
6021 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53705
608-238-8406