Vicki Vukovich, 96, oldest bowler - male or female - to compete in the finals of a professional tournament
Hoodoo
Vukovich rolled strikes to spare, even at 69
She became oldest bowler to compete in finals of a professional tournament
By Amy Rabideau Silvers of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: June 8, 2010
http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/95923284.html
http://media.journalinteractive.com/images/mjs-vicki-vukovich_obit.jpg
At 69, Vicki Vukovich shows the kind of form that brought her accolades
throughout her career as she bowled at Olympic Lanes in 1983.
As if all her other bowling honors weren't enough, Vicki Vukovich became
the oldest bowler - male or female - to compete in the finals of a
professional tournament.
She did that when she was 69.
In 1987, Vukovich was named to the Wisconsin Women's Bowling Association
Hall of Fame's first class of honorees for superior performance, along
with Jean Bopp and Esther Ryan, said bowling historian Doug Schmidt,
author of "They Came to Bowl: How Milwaukee Became America's Tenpin
Capital."
"When you think of the great ladies of Milwaukee bowling, you always
think Jean Bopp and Vicki Vukovich, probably in the same sentence,"
Schmidt said. With Ryan, "they were the three grand dames of women's
bowling here in Wisconsin."
Victoria Vukovich died of congestive heart failure May 26. She was 96. A
Milwaukee south sider, she last lived in Boca Raton, Fla., where she
moved to be near her son's family.
"She was a tough lady," said Shirley Mielke, another Wisconsin hall of
famer and a teammate on the powerhouse Clear-Vu Window Cleaning team,
sponsored by the Mielke family business. "When you bowled with her, she
expected a lot of you. And she was just a great person. She was a lady
who you were happy to know."
Vukovich's age was the one statistic not up for discussion, as a
sportswriter heard in 1979. That was when she rolled a 792 series, then
the third-highest series that season by any woman in the country.
"Now don't go asking me my age," she said. "I knew that was going to be
the next question."
"Her age, according to an inside source . . . is 66," that writer
revealed. "And, if that is indeed the truth, it just makes Vukovich's
accomplishment all the more remarkable."
She didn't stop bowling or making headlines.
"In May 1983, she became the oldest bowler, male or female, to reach the
finals of a professional tournament," Schmidt said. The Ladies
Professional Bowlers Tour tournament was held at Olympic Lanes in Milwaukee.
She still wasn't saying her age, though it was 69.
"The only thing I say is that I've been married 50-some years and I have
two great-granddaughters," she told a sports reporter. All that was
worth media time in Sports Illustrated and on "Good Morning America."
The former Victoria Schaulis grew up in Milwaukee, marrying Frank
Vukovich at 16. She became the mother of a son, also named Frank, when
she was 17. Vukovich later earned a technical school degree, working as
a stenographer and then as personal secretary to the Milwaukee tax
commissioner.
"She didn't start to bowl until she was 27," Schmidt said. "Her first
season average in 1941 was 136."
"Her husband taught her to bowl," said daughter-in-law Marge Vukovich.
From 1950 to 1988, Vukovich bowled on 10 state championship teams,
often wearing a "V V" in cursive on her bowling outfits.
Her high season average was 199 in the 1980s. She was especially proud
of finishing fifth in the prestigious WIBC Queens Tournament in 1975.
"Queen Vukovich Reigns Again," declared the headline of a Billy Sixty
column in The Milwaukee Journal in 1956. She did so, he wrote, "with a
record little short of dazzling."
Her bowling ended as it began, with her husband.
"He was her teacher. That was their life together," her daughter-in-law
said. "When he got sick and died of lymphoma in 1991, she never picked
up another bowling ball again."
Survivors include her only child, son Frank; sister Jessie Schwabe;
eight grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren and six
great-great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is being planned for August, with interment next to
her husband's remains at Forest Home Cemetery.
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