Roberta Lorene (Robbins) Maguire

On a bright, sunshiny, South Carolina morning about sunrise, Bert decided it was a good time to leave her earthly family to join her heavenly family. She died peacefully in her sleep at a beautiful respite home called Friends of Caroline near Beaufort, South Carolina. Bert was the wife of Mosinee’s former mayor, Jack Maguire. She will be greatly missed by her daughter, with whom she lived for the last five years, Kay Dyson of Bluffton, South Carolina. Missing her also will be her grandson Mark Geoffrey (Mona) of Charleston, SC, her granddaughter Maureen Geoffrey (Mike Barger) of St. Paul, MN; her great grandchildren, Coty Dyson of Blaine, MN, Chelsea Dyson of Minneapolis, MN and Connor Barger of St. Paul, MN and her great-great grandson, James Dyson.

Preceding Bert in death in addition to her husband Jack, and her son-in-law James Dyson, were her parents John in 1965 and Grace in 1968. Also preceding her were two sisters, Genevieve (John) Valosek of Northlake, IL and Lillian (Robert) Mihlfried of Las Vegas, NV, her brothers Clifford (Isabel) Robbins of Marinette WI, Donald (Toni) Robbins of Lincoln, NB, and Orville Robbins of Mosinee, WI. Orv’s wife Donna, Mosinee, remains as the sole member of the original Robbins family. (Bert also had a niece, Gloria Jean Valosek, who died in 1962 in Northlake IL.) There are many cousins on both sides still here, carrying on their parents’ dreams.

Bert was born on May 5, 1922 in the Town of Mosinee to Grace Babcock Robbins and John Robbins, their second daughter. She attended Boulevard Elementary School and Mosinee High School, class of 1940. She married Jack Maguire in the Fall of 1941, and gave birth to their only child, Kathryn (Kay), in June of 1942. Nine months later, as Jack, an Army Air Corps medic, was sent to service in Norwich/ Ipswich England during WWII, Bert enrolled in the Wisconsin School of Cosmetology in Madison. Upon graduating with honors she started work first in a friend’s salon in Waupaca, then later to a salon in Wausau before starting her own business first in Wausau, then Mosinee. She and Jack bought Bundy’s Tavern, remodeled it then reopened as Mosinee Beauty Salon. She was a beautician for over 50 years.

While running her own salon she was selected to represent Central Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Cosmetology Association in Madison, and also represented Wisconsin at the national level a number of times. Kay remembers helping her mother pack for her move from Arizona to South Carolina and running across an invitation to the inauguration of Lyndon Johnson and later on to the inauguration of Bill Clinton. She did not, however, attend either. For a few years after Bert sold her salon she couldn’t seem to sit still, so she started teaching cosmetology at a school in Stevens Point.

Then Jack decided to retire; they sold their home in Mosinee and moved to Sun City, Arizona, where they had a life full of golfing, sightseeing, getting to know new friends, and enjoying their new home with a backyard full of fruit trees. While on a visit to see her brother’s and sister-in-law‘s home, Jack’s sister, Jane Dahlbacka of Wausau, liked it so well she bought a home across the street. After Jack died in October 1999, Bert and Jane decided to share one house. Bert then sold her smaller home and moved into Jane’s home until Jane died in 2004. Bert continued to live there another five years until she relocated to her daughter’s home in Bluffton, South Carolina, in July 2019.

A private service will be conducted at a later date.