A century of tenacity: Josephine Pink celebrates her 100th birthday

The women of Taylor County are a different breed. They’re warm and thoughtful. They bring their neighbors comfort dishes when a loved one passes, and hand out vegetables from their gardens to their loved ones. They’re quietly resilient. They milk cows in below freezing temperatures and go to work in blizzards, doing whatever it takes to put food on the table. They never miss an opportunity to smile. They can take a joke and dish one back without missing a beat. And no matter how difficult things get, they keep doing their best day in and day out.

Josephine Pink embodies everything that it means to be a woman from rural Wisconsin.

Josie was born on February 26, 1925 in Cedar, Minnesota, where she attended school in a single-room schoolhouse. Her parents, Lawrence and Sophie Gwiazdon, moved to Hannibal when she was a child, bringing Josie and her younger siblings Vickie, Dorothy, Mike, Patsy and Lorraine with them.

“That god forsaken country, no buses, no streetcars,” Josie laughed.

Her parents ran a dairy farm as they had in Minnesota. The eldest, Josie was responsible for farm chores alongside her father, where she learned the value of determination and a never-give up attitude.

When she was 16, Josie moved to Chicago to help her uncle with his children. She started a job operating a drill press and stayed there for a year and a half until a ruptured appendix saw her hospitalized. Her parents were told she my not survive, and Josie woke to find her father there. After she recovered, he took Josie home to Hannibal.

She returned to the farm and rumors that she was getting married, which was news to Josie. Apparently a man named Johnny had big plans for her.

“He had different feelings for me than the way I had it,” Josie recalls. “He was adding onto his little house and everything.”

Even though she wasn’t interested, young Johnny couldn’t stop thinking about charming, hard-working Josie. Once while bar-hopping with Johnny and another friend, Roland Mudgett, Josie was sure to remind everyone who was in charge. Johnny pulled over to relieve himself outside, and Roland saw his opportunity and snatched it, planting a kiss on Josie before she could blink. Johnny got back into the car, immediately jealous when he realized what had happened and he began driving erratically. Josie demanded that Johnny pull over and let her out.

She stepped out in her high heels. “I’m walking to Hannibal,” Josie told them.

Roland refused to leave her side, and he got out of the car with Josie. Johnny sped away but returned a few minutes later, and Josie gave him a talking-to.

“If you want to kill yourself, kill yourself, but you’re not going to kill me, I’m not ready to die yet,” Josie scolded Johnny. Roland eventually drove her home, careful to mind his manners.

Roland and Josie remained friends, but she never took him seriously. She recalls sitting across from him in the bar. “He’d say, ‘I love you,’ and I thought, ‘get lost,’” Josie said.

At her sister’s wedding Josie was dancing with Roland, and her aunt confessed that she thought Josie would marry Roland one day. Josie laughed and said, “God, he’s probably got a whole bunch of girlfriends.”

Roland was deployed shortly after, but when he returned in 1946 and Josie saw him in his uniform, it only took three months for her to become Mrs. Mudgett.

They had five children together; Dianne, Larry, Cindy, Randy, and Wayne. Josie and Roland moved to the cities for a time where Roland worked at a used car dealership. But like most of the people who leave Wisconsin, they found their way back, and in 1963 Josie and Roland settled in Hannibal for good.

Dianne has fond memories of her parents. “They would go without eating and let us eat to make sure we had enough food,” she said. “Both of my parents were the best parents you can have.”

Josie started working at the Medford nursing home as a nurse’s aid in 1968 which she did for 27 years, retiring at the spry age of 70. She loved being a caregiver and felt the most satisfaction when she was helping others. One interesting job duty there was translating Polish for some of Dr. Meyer’s patients.

When Roland passed away in 1974, Josie kept going, making things work and putting her children before herself. She married Paul Pink in 1982.

Josie also worked for her brother at his campground on Miller Dam. She was responsible for maintaining the lawn and assisting campers and did so joyfully.

In 1993, when Josie was 68, Paul passed away. Since then Josie has lost many others, including two of her own children. Josie carried on, filling her time with things that bring her joy, like dancing, painting dish towels, gardening (she grew to be known as the “Zucchini Lady”), baking bread and pies, and playing card games and bingo. She’s welcomed grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and she’s never forgotten the philosophy that kept her going her whole life, the legacy that she’s passed to her loved ones.

“Never give up,” Dianne said of her mother’s lessons. “No matter what happens, you work through it.”

Her children learned this subtly and by example. “I’d tell them that they had to make their beds before they went to school,” Josie said of her children when they were small. “I watched them and I thought ‘the kids are trying so hard,’ but you should have seen the bed,” she laughed.

“They did their best,” Josie continued. “When they left I’d make their beds, but when they came home they never noticed that,” she said. “But that was okay, because I thought, ‘you’ve got to learn.’” And, not surprisingly, she’s still the life of the party. Her family surprised her with a big birthday celebration with most of Josie’s relatives and friends in attendance, even her daughter-in-law from Florida.

“I saw my sister, but I thought I must be dreaming,” Josie said. “That whole hall was full of people, I could’ve went to the floor.”

Her family’s wish for her is happiness. Josie’s wish for herself is to ditch the walker that she acquired after breaking her hip last year.

If anyone can do it, it’s Josephine Pink.

Josephine Pink (seated) celebrates her 100th birthday at her party on Feb. 23 with family members at Celebrations Hall in Gilman (from l to r) Michael Mudgett, Jacob Zawacki, Trevor Zawacki, and Randy Mudgett.