Iowa Mourns: Dorothy Hubert

SIOUX CITY — Lots of Siouxland people read the human interest stories written by Dorothy Hubert as a Sioux City Journal correspondent, while others saw her crafts and decoupage art work or heard her “husband-calling” skills that won top prizes at not only the Woodbury County level but also the Iowa State Fair.

Dorothy had her hands on, or deep in, a lot of pursuits, both job-related and in her social and family life. She was still submitting fair county fair entries into her final decade, prior to dying Aug. 21, at age 90, from coronavirus-related complications.

“She was buying power tools in her 80s. I’m not kidding, a miter saw,” said Margret Jenkins of Pierce, Nebraska, one of three of Dorothy’s children to share remembrances of their mother.

“In her later years, she was just grateful for her life. She mostly thought of the good in life,” said son Wendell Hubert, of Sioux City.

Dorothy Mae Parker was born Jan. 20, 1930, in Sioux City. She was the youngest of six children of Horace and Alice Parker. Through song and dance as a child, she emulated her idol Shirley Temple. While attending Sloan High School, Dorothy traveled to the state speech competition in central Iowa.

She married Albert Hubert in late 1946. They had 10 children born over the space of 21 years, while living on a few houses both in Salix and on some rural locations outside town, before they later divorced.

“I always thought, ‘We are going to get three meals a day and the door would be unlocked.’ You never questioned the love part, it was just there,” Wendell Hubert said.

Dorothy worked as a school bus driver, a Mary Kay cosmetics consultant and was a 4-H leader who spurred not only other children but her own to enter a lot of fair projects. She passed on a legacy of baking, so that today Wendell is lauded by family members for his cinnamon rolls.

Living through the Great Depression, Dorothy learned how to stretch a dollar through thriftiness, including buying many items from yard sales that were then refurbished to her liking.

Even now, her children are working to sort through all the “do-dads” Dorothy accumulated, daughter Deb McLarty, of Sergeant Bluff, said. When she went to her mother’s home a few days ago, it was surprising to hear music playing. McLarty finally saw it was a Disney Pocahontas alarm clock that had gone off.

“She was cautioning me not to throw her good stuff out,” McLarty said.

There was a banner year in the mid-1970s when she won a state fair title in not only chicken-calling, but also husband-calling.

“I remember being amazed at Mother, things she would accomplish or do. She wasn’t afraid of anything, she liked a challenge…She knew she would make it happen,” Jenkins said.

In her mid-50s, Dorothy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Briar Cliff University, then held the area correspondent position at The Journal for about two decades.

McLarty said her mother at times mulled a full-time writing job, but also realized not doing that left her more time to do all the things she loved. In her later years, Dorothy took up painting in the folk art style of Grandma Moses.

A member of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Salix, she sang in the choir and served as cantor for many years. She devotedly recited the rosary every night, praying for family members. Of Dorothy’s 10 children, eight are still living, and the progeny includes 29 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.

“She never compared one against the other,” Wendell Hubert said.

There were certainly some family challenges over the years, but Dorothy typically took them in stride. McLarty noted there was a difficult time when she got divorced while having two children under age 3, as she sought an education for a better career.

“(Dorothy) was so supportive. When I went to school to be a nurse, she took care of my kids,” McLarty said.