The quick skirts. The sparkly pompoms. The sassy hip sways. The grandchildren.
They are the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a marching, dancing vacation fixture in Wisconsin for almost 40 years, and a joyful twist on America’s expectations that parades are alleged to characteristic primarily school-age dance troupes.
But tragedy struck the group when, as they marched down one more Main Street on Sunday, vacation music blaring round them, three grandmothers had been killed.
“Our group was doing what they loved, performing in front of crowds in a parade,” the group stated in an announcement Monday morning. “Putting smiles on faces of all ages, filling them with joy and happiness.”
Late Sunday afternoon, the driving force of a crimson SUV roared by a Christmas parade within the suburban Milwaukee city of Waukesha, killing not less than 5 folks and leaving 48 injured, in response to authorities. Police stated he had left the scene of a home dispute and didn’t seem to know anybody within the parade when he drove into the route.
Not even an hour earlier, the Grannies had referred to as out to followers on their Facebook web page.
“Waukesha here we come!!!” the put up shouted. “The Grannies are kicking off their holiday parades.”
The Dancing Grannies grew out of an train class in 1984, with dozens of ladies, most ranging in age from their mid-50s to mid-70s, biking out and in of the group through the years. They have just one requirement: You have to be a grandmother.
Police recognized these killed as Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71; Tamara Durand, 52; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81. The three ladies had been members of the Grannies, and Hospel reportedly helped the troupe with their exhibits.
Durand was doing her first present with the Grannies on Sunday, stated her husband, Dave Durand, who was not on the parade. She’d seen them carry out solely as soon as earlier than deciding to affix – just because she discovered pleasure in dancing.
“She basically danced her way through life,” he stated of his spouse of eight years, a hospice chaplain and former highschool and faculty cheerleader who was “super excited” for her first efficiency.
“She was totally energetic and was her happiest when she was dancing,” he stated.
Tamara Durand was a mom of three with one grandchild. She babysat her grandson so her daughter might end nursing faculty, and volunteered at hospitals and hospices.
“She was an Energizer Bunny,” who ran each morning irrespective of the climate, Dave Durand stated. And she might by no means move up sweets, consuming “more sugar than a sugar factory.”
Jane Kulich, 52, additionally died. Local information reviews stated she labored for an area department of Citizens Bank, which issued an announcement saying an worker “was walking with our parade float” when she was struck and killed. The financial institution didn’t establish the worker.
Sorenson, a dance lover who had to surrender the interest years in the past after surgical procedure, was the group’s longtime choreographer.
“It was like I lost a best friend” when she needed to cease dancing, she instructed WDJT, the Milwaukee CBS affiliate, in an August story concerning the group. The Grannies introduced again that pleasure. “I love it, and I love the ladies.”
David Sorenson, her husband of almost 60 years, instructed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about how she beloved working with the Grannies.
“What did she like about it? Everything,” Sorenson stated. “She liked the instructing. She liked the dancing and the camaraderie of the women. She liked to perform.”
And, he stated: “She taught me to do the cancan.”
