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Eighty Five Years of Hardy House Friendship

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© Mark Hertzberg (2026)

I have posted many stories about Anne Sporer Ruetz and her passion for the house she grew up in between 1938 – 1947, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House south of downtown Racine, Wisconsin. Anne was five when her parents became the second stewards of the house after Hardy lost the house in a sheriff’s auction from the steps of the Racine County Courthouse the year before. Hardy, who was deeply in debt over the house, appealed the sale but the bank prevailed.

We are fortunate that Anne was given a Brownie camera when she was about 10 years old, and enjoyed taking pictures of her home.

Anne wrote “my dream house” on the back of this photo she had taken as a child. She told me that she would sometimes dream that her husband, Russ, bought her the house as a birthday present.

She took many photos of her friends at the house, especially of Mary Johnson who would be a lifetime friend, later as Mary Johnson Hill:

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Karen Cushman, left, and Mary Johnson
Mary fastens her roller skates in front of the wood gates that hung across the entry ways until 1950.

The only furniture that we know Wright designed for the house were the dining room set and beds that were so constricting that Anne and Mary called them the “coffin beds.” Mary graciously drew a photo from memory for my 2006 book about the house:

Mary a frequent guest at the house, is not certain there was paneling on the sides.
Anne celebrated her 14th or golden birthday on Wednesday August 14, 1946. The Racine Journal Times published a photo of the birthday breakfast at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed dining room table in the Thursday August 15 edition of the newspaper. Mary Johnson is the second girl from the right.

Mary, left, and Anne, both 94, visited the house together again this summer. Mary’s daughter, Anne Hill Bird, Director of Outreach and Engagement for the Society of Architecture Historians, sent me this lovely photo:

I wish that photo were the end of the story of this friendship, but it is not. I got this email September 14 from Mary’s daughter:

Dear Mark:   

I wanted to let you know that my mother, Mary Hill passed away yesterday.  She was 94, and recently had a bad fall… We will miss her dearly, but she definitely had a good run, and a fabulous life full of love, family, travel, experiences, friends, significant civic work and lots of laughter.  We should all be so lucky. 

I know you asked for permission to publish the image of both her and Anne Ruetz in front of the Hardy House.  I checked with her about a week ago, and she said if Anne was OK with it, she would be fine with that image on your website.   I know she loved participating in your book where she drew the pictures of the “coffin beds” that she and Anne Ruetz had slept in as young girls. 

(I talked with Anne yesterday, and gave her my condolences over the loss of her friend. She looks forward to their friendship being remembered on-line).

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