Fox Lake marina’s Norman Bauske dies; had role in U.S. rose industry

Norman Otto Bauske ran his Fox Lake marina for nearly 60 years, storing boats and launching them into the water from Bauske Boat Basin.

Mr. Bauske, who died on Sept. 16 at 92, also was a link to American rose-growing history.

Bauske Brothers Rose Farm in Woodstock, owned by his father, Otto, and uncle Herman, was one of the country’s biggest rose producers. Founded in the 1920s, it used to grow and sell as many as 7.5 million roses a year. The farm employed scores of people and burned 120 tons of coal each winter to keep its greenhouses warm, according to a 1936 edition of the Marengo Republican-News.

“They had 200 acres under glass,” said Norman Bauske’s son Brooks.

The fragrant acreage led to the naming of Rose Farm Road in unincorporated Woodstock, said Kurt Begalka, administrator of the McHenry County Historical Society.

During World War II, about 65 German POWS worked the land, which came to be known as Otto Bauske and Hinner. It was the Woodstock Rose Farm when it closed in 1981.

Mr. Bauske grew up in Des Plaines, where his family once operated another rose nursery near Touhy and Mannheim. That contributed to the village’s old motto, “City of Roses.”

His life aquatic began after Maine Township High School. He joined the Navy, where he learned to operate amphibious landing craft. Though he drilled for D-Day, a case of mumps landed him in a Glasgow hospital.

“Everybody he had worked with left and went to Normandy,” said his son. “And the entire group he trained with, not a single soul survived.”

After the war, Mr. Bauske went to Lincoln College on the GI bill.

At a carnival in Antioch, he met a Polish-American beauty, Christine Jablonski. “That was when you were supposed to marry your own,” said another son, Brice. “When he wanted to date her, he went to the house and her father said, ‘What’s your name?’ And dad said ‘Bau-SKI’ ’’ — a strategic move to try and make his German surname sound more Polish.

They were married 64 years until her death in January.

The Bauskes raised five kids in Arlington Heights, all with names beginning with “B.” In addition to Brooks and Brice, they had Brent, Brock and Bridjet Fogarty. “The ‘jet’ in her name came from the fact she was a quick birth,” Brooks Bauske said. “My dad goes, ‘Yeah, she came out like a jet.’ ”

“He used to say, ‘If I had one more, I was going to name it ‘Broke.’ ”

Until 1959, Mr. Bauske worked on the family rose farm. But he wanted to strike out on his own, so he bought a marina at Nippersink Creek on the Fox River. Bauske Boat Basin has 100 slips and 75 boat garages on 10 acres of land at 152 N. US Highway 12.

Starting out, times were watery — and not in a good way. To help pay bills, he worked the door at the Flying Carpet Motor Inn in Rosemont.

“He gave himself the moniker ‘Norman the Doorman,’ ’’ said Brooks Bauske.

From April to Halloween, he worked seven days a week at the marina helping people store and launch boats. Clients included NASCAR driver Fred Lorenzen and Marshall Brodien, who played Wizzo the Clown on the Bozo show. Brodien was a popular pitchman of 1970s television, extolling “TV Magic Cards” to Chicago kids.

Though he didn’t get to make it happen, he dreamed of expanding the marina into a resort with a restaurant and nightclub. He wanted to build a boat-shaped “ ‘Boat-el’, not a hotel,” said Brice Bauske.

He had a boat he dubbed “The Bug.”

“If the water was like glass, he’d say, ‘It’s a good day to go out in The Bug,’ ” Brooks said.

His sons said Mr. Bauske helped countless boaters. He’d let broke clients keep watercraft at the marina until they had money to pay for storage. When a customer cut his head open in a boating accident, “My dad had to hold the guy’s skin together on the pier till the ambulance came,” said Brice.

He and his wife loved to dance to 1950s rock. When he was in the hospital, he reminisced about Jerry Lee Lewis. “I loved him,” he said. “He used to jump on the piano.”

In addition to his five kids, he is survived by 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Visitation is planned at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Sept. 25, until an 11:30 a.m. memorial at Hamsher Lakeside Funerals & Cremations, Fox Lake.