Ilse Dietsche, 2014

People are saying there are lessons to be learned from these hard times. Lines of communication have been refreshed and some things are no 
longer taken for granted.

On the evening of April 2, I sent a short e
-mail to Ilse Dietsche. I had not done this in a long time. I wrote about Ilse for this website in September 2014 when she decided to drive Route 66 alone.

Ilse was 86 years old in 2014.

Her determination and wonder became one of my all-time favorite travel 
stories.

I called her “The Grandma of the Mother Road.” I had Ilse and her daughter Christine on my WGN radio show. I always wanted to meet Ilse 
in person. 
Ilse responded to my note from her iPad on April 3. She said her 
health had been sliding since February. She was in her Minneapolis apartment, surrounded by her life’s adventures in photos, paintings and writings. She tested negative for COVID-19 but had developed pneumonia. Ilise 
hoped that she would start hospice care on Monday, April 6. “I am ready,” she wrote. And then she signed her note, “Thank you, made one person happy.”

Ilise passed away on April 9.

I felt bad that I never made the trip to Minnesota to see her. I took 
that anticipated journey for granted. But she will always make me 
happy every time I read the dispatches she shared from the Mother Here is Ilise, 9/29/14, her last day on Route 66. She was at 
the Clines Corners Cafe in Stanley, N.M.: “Black clouds were hanging over the mesas and hills, soon the first drops came, but only for a short time a hefty rain shower just so that I had a freshly washed car to drive into a sunny town again. I 
followed the sign here and it must be like the old times at night. 
Many neon signs, the old somehow revived, small hotels and inviting 
diners…”

The old, somehow revived.

A lesson to be learned, for sure.

Ilse was born on Aug. 6, 1928, in the Black Forest of Germany. Her 
father Albin was an attorney and her mother Bertel was a homemaker and daughter of 
a beer brewer. They met in a dance class. Ilse told me she was lucky enough in life to be a mother and a housewife.

She embarked on her Route 66 trip to attend the 76th conference of 
the Photographic Society of America in Albuquerque, N.M. Ilse named her camel-colored Hyuandi “Isabella” after the Queen of Spain. She pasted St. Christopher (the patron saint of travelers) on her dashboard. Ilse listened to German folk songs and Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson on her eight-day journey from her home  
in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. to Dwight, Il. and out to New Mexico. Ilse always managed to find a Route 66 motel by four in the afternoon. Ilse did not like to drive at night. One time she said she “was 
glad the sun is still in my backpack.”

Ilse was an accomplished photographer who had visited 140 countries in her lifetime. She went to Chile and Easter Island on a four-month Aegean cruise. She saw the Amazon and traveled to Cuba with National Geographic photographer Bob Krist. She went to Africa in October, 
2001, a month after Americans were warned not to travel. Ilse even attended two National Hobo Conventions in Britt, Ia. Her fellow hobos  
gave her the handle “The Great Northern Gypsy.”

The Great Northern Gypsy (all photos courtesy of Christine Dietsche.)

Ilse has left behind thousands and thousands of Kodak slides of her travels.  
Like so many Europeans, Ilse was mesmerized with the magical breadth of Route 66. Ilse came to the United States in 1962. She arrived in a Chicago blizzard.

Ilse met her husband Dr. Wolfgang Dietsche in Germany. He later became an orthopedic surgeon in Urbana, Ill. Ilse was jet-lagged on her first night in America when they were eating in a diner in Bloomington, Il., not far off of Route 66. Ilse was proud to see her first cowboy 
in the distance. She told me her husband said, “No, that is not a cowboy. That was a tired state trooper.”

Dr.Dietsche and Ilse moved to Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. in 1967 with their children Christine and Thomas, who died in 2008. Dr. Dietsche died in 1988 after 36 years of marriage. After his death, Ilse decided to travel the world. She was sad but she had to move forward.

Ilse discovered my Route 66 stories on this website. She was 
looking for safety advice and expressed a desire to stay in old motels. In 2014 Ilse did not want her last name to be used and she 
didn’t want me to share her pictures. She was not making the trip for attention or fame. I sent out a dispatch to my  
readers and they responded with several tips. Christine edited Ilse’s Route 66 diary before sending it off to me. A couple of times Ilse mentioned a friend named “Miss Garmin” who was helping with the drive. Christine and I were baffled. Christine concluded that Miss Garmin was Ilse’s GPS.

Some of Ilse’s favorite Route 66 stops included the dusty red earth  
of Pampa, Tx, where she connected with “The Grapes of Wrath” and the Dixie Truck Stop in McLean, Ill. (established in 1928, the oldest  
truck stop in America), where she had a trucker’s lunch. Of course.

Ilse at Sia: The Comanche Nation Eagle & Raptor Center in Cyril, Ok.

She was impressed with The Big Texan Steak Ranch on Route 66 in Amarillo, Tx. and the cowboy who picked her up in a limousine at her $36 a night motel room. Before dinner Ilse watched a one-man band with washboard, guitar and harmonica. She did not attempt to eat the Big Texan’s 72-ounce steak. “My food was excellent!,” she wrote. “I ordered 2 appetizers: smoked ribs and mountain oysters and a glass of Texas Red Amber Ale.”

In an e-mail from October, 2014, Ilse reflected on her trip: “I only met wonderful and helpful people, from cheerful girls to 
bearded bikers.”

In the last few years of her life, Ilse sent out annual Christmas  
e-mails. In December 2019 she lamented about leaving her “second 
homeland” of Wisconsin after 50 years. After a neck cancer diagnosis and treatment, Ilse moved to Minnesota to be closer to Christine and her husband Eric. They helped Ilse make her new place feel just like home.

After settling in, Ilse spent much of the summer and fall of 2019 going 
through boxes of memories. “I am confident that life still has many unknown surprises for me,” she said. “Changes do not know age limits! And an open mind is given  
to us which lets us explore whatever.” Ilse discovered an old book about President James Garfield in her belongings. She shared a quote from the book: “If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon our hearts. The spirit should not grow old.”

Ilse and her husband Wolfgang.

This beautiful and giving woman had been around the world more than 
once. She understood that nothing is permanent in this short life. You make the most of it. She added, “But we must hold dear what we remember—and were taught, also hold on to the things that were just ‘once in a lifetime.’ I grew up where parents played house music and  
told us stories about the world–the history–and different cultures. When we could still believe in romantic, sincerity, justice–and no air in the windmill of our minds!”

So these are gentle lessons for a rough stretch.  Next time I feel a sense 
of struggle–which lately has been often –I will wait for the warm 
wind from the Great Northern Gypsy. There will be romance, 
connection, and promising neon signs. The old, somehow revived, 
guiding me down a brighter road.

A celebration of Ilse’s life will take place in the future. In lieu of flowers, please consider a commemorative donation to Wild Paws Sanctuary 

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