Dates

• Existence: 1908 - 2010

Biography

Bertha Korn Tucker was a writer and life-long student who lived in Iowa for most of her life. Bertha Ida Korn was born in Des Moines, Iowa on April 25, 1908. She was the youngest of five children born to Shana Ethel Hoffman and Samuel Koen, who had emigrated from Lithuania just a few years before her birth. Growing up in the "Jewish ghetto" of Des Moines, she faced a great deal of prejudice. She graduated from North High School in1926 and completed her two-year Certificate in Education from Drake University in Des Moines two years later. She held a variety of jobs including kindergarten teacher, typist, and secretary. In 1937, she married Isadore Tucker, an Oelwein businessman in the automobile salvage industry. After living briefly in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Washington, D.C., and Petersburg, Virginia, she settled back in her hometown with her family. Tucker had two children and was a devoted parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent. She was involved in the Sisterhood (Jewish aid society) at the Beth El Jacob synagogue in Des Moines and served as program director for Hadassah, a national organization which aids disadvantaged Jews, primarily children. She was also an active member of the Yiddish class at Bethel Jacob, for which she translated dozens of songs, poems, and short stories. Tucker was deeply committed to Jewish culture and history. Tucker re-enrolled at Drake University and was awarded a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts with an emphasis on English, in 1969. She continued to take courses at Drake over ten years after her graduation, well into her seventies. Since elementary school, her true love was been writing. Over the years, she amassed an impressive body of work, having composed over forty short stories and poems in both English and Yiddish. Tucker died in 2010.

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