Remembering Carolyn “Kay” Swartz Bucksbaum
Carolyn Swartz Bucksbaum ’51
Life Trustee Carolyn “Kay” Swartz Bucksbaum ’51, DL ’12, died Oct. 22 at her home in Chicago at the age of 95. Kay, who was the first woman chair of the Board of Trustees, led a long and full life as a wife, mother, community leader, and philanthropist.
Kay worked tirelessly to support and improve education, arts, and health care, and was a keen advocate for women’s rights and justice. She served on numerous regional and national boards and was a champion of many charitable causes. She had a strong interest in helping young people achieve their dreams, and she befriended and encouraged many talented young people to pursue their goals in academia and the arts.
Kay was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She self-published an autobiography of growing up during the World War II years in Des Moines, called A Place to Grow: Memories of an Iowa Childhood.
As a Grinnell student, Kay participated in drama, Spanish club, and was Student Council treasurer and president of the synchronized swim club. She also was active in journalism, being named the first woman editor of the Grinnell campus newspaper. She was recruited for an executive training program at Meredith Publishing, and later served on the board of the Des Moines Register. Kay graduated with honors.
Bucksbaum speaks during a Grinnell campaign event in Chicago in November 2019.
After a blind date set up by a future in-law, she married Matthew Bucksbaum from Marshalltown, Iowa, where they lived until moving to Cedar Rapids and eventually to Bettendorf and Des Moines, as her husband and brother-in-law’s shopping center development business, General Growth Properties, rapidly expanded, first throughout the Midwest and then nationally.
Kay joined the Board of Trustees in 1970, served as chair of the board from 1974 to 1978, and became a Life Member in 1998. She received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Grinnell College in 2012.
A photo in the 1951 Cyclone yearbook shows Bucksbaum (seated) as a student working on The Scarlet & Black newspaper staff. She was the first female editor of the newspaper.
Kay and Matthew were generous benefactors of the College. Kay’s father was a 1917 Grinnell graduate, and she established the Mose E. Swartz scholarship in his honor. Kay and Matthew supported the construction of the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, built in 1999, to consolidate Grinnell’s art, music, and theatre departments under one roof. The center serves as an enduring legacy to the Bucksbaums’ appreciation for and support of the performing arts. Matthew passed away in November 2013.
Kay served as chair of the Des Moines Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival and School. She served on the boards of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and the National Public Radio Foundation. She was a co-founder of the Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute for Clinical Excellence at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, with a special interest in advancing patient-centered care. She recently announced a major gift to establish the Bucksbaum Photography Center at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Matthew and Kay Bucksbaum are pictured at an Aspen Music Festival event. They were inducted into the Aspen Hall of Fame in 2019.
Kay was active in the League of Women Voters, parading for reproductive rights even from a wheelchair, and demonstrating the importance of tolerance and understanding as shown by her wide circle of friends from every nationality and background.
Kay is lovingly survived by her family; her daughter, Ann (Thomas L. Friedman) of Bethesda; her son, John Bucksbaum (Jacolyn Baker Bucksbaum) of Chicago; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.