Funeral Details

Carolyn ("Kay") Swartz Bucksbaum, 95, died peacefully after a long and full life on Tuesday, October 22, at her home in Chicago, where she had lived for the past 24 years. The cause was lung failure, according to her daughter, Ann B. Friedman.

Born and raised in Des Moines, Mrs. Bucksbaum graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School and then from Grinnell College in Iowa. After a blind date in 1952 set up by a future in-law, she married Matthew Bucksbaum from Marshalltown, Iowa, where they lived until moving to Cedar Rapids and eventually to Bettendorf and Des Moines, as her husband and brother-in-law's shopping center development business, General Growth Properties, rapidly expanded, first throughout the Midwest and then nationally. She self-published an autobiography of growing up during the World War II years in Des Moines, called A Place to Grow: Memories of an Iowa Childhood.

Mrs. Bucksbaum was an avid athlete, competing in synchronized swimming in high school, and then, in her late 70's, entering Master's swimming races, where she proudly won gold medals against the almost nonexistent competition in her age category! She was also active in journalism, being named the first woman editor of the Grinnell campus newspaper and then was recruited for an executive training program at Meredith Publishing; she later served on the board of the Des Moines Register.

In the summer of 1953, to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, she and her husband traveled to Colorado and stopped in Aspen, where they immediately fell in love with the town. They prized the mountain scenery and natural beauty, skiing, the summer music festival, and intellectual offerings at the Aspen Institute. A lover of nature and the outdoors, Mrs. Bucksbaum
cultivated gardens wherever she lived, even recreating a prairie in her Des Moines backyard.

She was the first woman chair of the board of trustees of Grinnell and also served as chair of the Des Moines Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival and School. She served on the boards of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and the National Public Radio Foundation. She was a co-founder of the Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute for Clinical Excellence at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, with a special interest in advancing patient-centered care. She recently announced a major gift to establish the Bucksbaum Photography Center at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A woman with a great design sense and unerring aesthetic sensibilities, Mrs. Bucksbaum worked with well-known architects to incorporate her love of Native American art and contemporary American craft into her living spaces; she and her husband also endowed the construction of a performing arts center at Grinnell and the Bucksbaum Campus of the Aspen Music School.
Her other strong interest was helping young people achieve their dreams; an example being the New Horizons fellowship program at the Aspen Music Festival, which she and her husband initiated and endowed. It recognizes extraordinary artist faculty by allowing them to award full fellowships for three students in each of three summers, inspired by the example of master violin teacher Dorothy DeLay. She befriended and encouraged many other talented young people to pursue their goals in academia and the arts, filling her home with the sounds of young musicians practicing on her piano inlaid with Aspen-tree marquetry.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Bucksbaum was a keen advocate for women's rights and justice, being active in the League of Women Voters, parading for reproductive rights even from a wheelchair, and demonstrating the importance of tolerance and understanding as shown by her wide circle of friends from every nationality and background.
With a strength of character belied by her small stature, she never lost her love of fun and whimsy. She was known for wearing red, white and blue ensembles right up to a sequined baseball cap on the Fourth of July and wearing sparkly sneakers that allowed her to dance at her granddaughter's black-tie wedding while holding onto her signature Burberry-print walker! She loved celebrating holidays with singing, and penning doggerels for any occasion.

Mrs. Bucksbaum is lovingly survived by her family; her daughter, Ann (Thomas L. Friedman) of Bethesda; her son, John Bucksbaum (Jacolyn Baker Bucksbaum) of Chicago; four grandchildren, Orly Friedman (Matthew Miller) of San Francisco, Natalie Winston (Daniel Winston) of Washington, D.C., Max Bucksbaum of New York, and Eli Bucksbaum of Los Angeles; and three great grandchildren.

Graveside service Sunday 12PM at Jewish Glendale Cemetery, 4909 University Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50310. Memorial contributions can be made to the Aspen Music Festival and School, 225 Music School Road, Aspen, Colorado 81611, www.aspenmusicfestival.com or The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603, www.artic.edu or National Public Radio (NPR), WBEZ / Chicago Public Media, Attn: Development, PO Box 95090, Chicago, IL 60694-5090, www.npr.org or Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, 1011 Locust Street, Suite 200, Des Moines, Iowa 50309, dmsymphony.org. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com