David Thom Kubach

UPDATE: An Open House to Celebrate Davids' Life will be held on Saturday, October 22 from 1-3 PM, at the Iola Winter Sports Club Complex at E398 County Road MM, Iola, WI. 54945. David Thom Kubach died on October 6, 2022 of complications of Parkinson’s Disease at his home in Amherst Junction. David was born January 19, 1937 in Minneapolis MN, and adopted by Walter and Ruth Kubach. Much of his youth was spent in Beloit, WI, where he graduated from high school. He was further educated at UW Stevens Point, and the University of Montana at Missoula where he took a degree in English and Creative Writing, followed by graduate study at Brandeis University. David’s compelling interests were always in the outdoor world and writing. When he was young, he was fortunate to spend vacations with his parents in the WI resort town of Lake Nebagamon, where he met life-long friends and learned to fish the Brule River. While in college, he worked summers in Montana for the Forest Service and the Park Service doing trail crew work. Montana, and the West, became the “great, good place” of his best memories-- working in the Glacier Park area, fly fishing in off hours. He entered military service, serving a stint in Puerto Rico, where he trained young men in English language for the Army. While there, David had the pleasure of becoming the great friend and colleague of John Toole, whose Pulitzer Prize novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, was partially written on David's typewriter in the barracks. After military service, David returned to Wisconsin and married Kathleen McGinley, eventually settling in Ashland. They had one daughter, Aurora. The couple later divorced. During his time in Ashland, a small literary community developed, with connections to Northland College. David and poet friends published a small press literary magazine, The Great Circumpolar Bear Cult, which featured poetry with a northern emphasis. David then began a career as an arts educator. He worked for arts organizations in several states, teaching poetry as an “Artist-in-Residence” in arts supplemental programs in schools, in prisons, and in special situations where a literary or arts focus was funded. Elementary students particularly responded to his humorous and insightful lessons about animals. His own poetry was published in various books and publications during the 70’s and 80’s, and in his own collection, First Things. It was in these years that he met his current wife, Ruth Aanrud, during a poetry residency at Beaver Dam HS where he worked with her students in a creative writing class. They married in 1988, lived in Madison, WI for some years, then retired to Amherst Jct in 2001 to Ruth’s family property where they lived in an 1880’s log house, in a lovely rural lake setting. David’s other great interest was fly fishing, so camping trips to northern Wisconsin were common. Trout!—nothing better---to catch, to release-- to cook! A special early summer annual trip was to the White River of the north, where he fished for the big rainbows, at night, in a slow swamp stream under the moon, as they rose to huge Hexagenia limbata flies. Another yearly fishing date was the October steelhead run in the Brule River, where huge rainbows swimming up-river were the prize. In retirement he also enjoyed hiking the Central WI segments of the Ice Age Trail with Ruth, and observing the local wild life and the changing of the seasons. David is survived by his wife, Ruth Aanrud; daughter Aurora (Colin Maltbie) Kubach; grandsons Huw David and Henrik Maltbie. An Open House to Celebrate Davids' Life will be held on Saturday, October 22 from 1-3 PM, at the Iola Winter Sports Club Complex at E398 County Road MM, Iola, WI. 5494 Memorial gifts will be sent to Trout Unlimited. The family would like to thank the staff at Compassus Home Care and Interim Hospice for their tender care for David in his final days. The Voie Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Iola is assisting the family.