Obituary: Auralea Hupp, 86, Seward neighborhood bar owner
Auralea Hupp turned down an offer to tour as a big-band singer in the 1940s, choosing instead to marry. After her husband, Claude, died in 1985, Hupp took over operations of the family's Hexagon Bar -- a longtime fixture in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis.
Hupp died Sunday of natural causes. She was 86.
"In her younger days -- and just prior to marrying my dad -- she sang under the stage name of Lee Kane" at nightclubs such as the Casablanca in downtown Minneapolis, son Bob Hupp said.
"I'm prejudiced, but she had a pretty good voice," said Hupp, who now operates the bar at 2600 27th Av. S.
The Hexagon Bar opened in the mid-1930s after Prohibition. Claude Hupp and his stepbrother assumed the business from their father in 1946, about a year after Claude and Auralea married, Bob Hupp said.
During World War II, Auralea worked in an aircraft hangar by day and sang at night. She used to call herself "Rosy the Riveter," after the female icon of the era, daughter Judy Hupp-Tilseth said.
The Hexagon Bar's namesake six-sided bar was removed during a 1980s remodeling.
Besides her son and daughter, Hupp is survived by another son, William; 13 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. today at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church in Minneapolis, at 1 Lourdes Pl.
Published in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune on 1/2/2004.
