Kenosha’s “Cookbook Lady”, Lenore Jean Baumann, 87, a retired operating room nurse, world traveler, circus volunteer, and avid cookbook collector died on Thursday, December 21, 2017 at her daughters home in Oak Harbor, WA.

A lifelong resident of Kenosha, where she was born July 1, 1930, she was the daughter of the late Emily (Zuehlsdorf) and Eugene “Euie” Schend.

She was a direct descendent of one of the city’s earliest settlers, Adam Schend, who came to Southport (later Kenosha) from Germany in 1846. Adam, known as “Father Schend,” operated the Schend Tavern, a colorful gathering place for politicians and wayfarers, on Seventh Avenue across from Union Park. The frame building, one of the oldest structures in Southern Wisconsin until it was razed several years ago, stood at the northern limits of the city. The property is now occupied by a boatyard.

Another of her forbearers was Christian Schend, who served four terms as Kenosha Fire Chief between 1868 and 1888.  Various members of her family were active in Kenosha County politics in the latter part of the last century. Her uncle, Leo Schend, served as Kenosha County Sheriff, her father was a deputy sheriff, and another uncle, Harold Schend, was the Kenosha County Register of Deeds.

Lenore Schend attended Kenosha public schools, and was a 1948 graduate of Mary D. Bradford High School. She subsequently attended the University of Wisconsin, and later graduated from Northwestern University’s James Ward Thorne School of Nursing. She worked as a registered nurse for the late Dr. Chester A. Sattler before joining the staff at Kenosha Memorial Hospital and Medical Center, where she was employed as a nurse in surgery from 1973 until her retirement in 1992.

She was a member of the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) and Trinity Lutheran Church.

She was long active in community volunteer work, including the Meals on Wheels program, the INNS Program, Shalom Center Soup Kitchen, Friends of the Kenosha Public Museum, Congregations to Save Humanity (CUSH), the Kenosha Blood Donor and Organ Tissue drives, and the annual Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee, where she served variously as a wardrobe mistress, traffic warden, animal cage attendant, and wild west show ticket seller. She was a former docent at the Kemper Art Center.

Her outside interests included world travel, gardening, and the culinary arts. She had a library of more than 1200 cookbooks which she read avidly, and in 1997 she conceived and edited “Body and Soul- Food for Thought”, a cookbook containing the favorite recipes of several hundred members of Trinity Lutheran Church.

She was also an organ donor, and expressed pleasure in knowing that she would live on in other people’s bodies after she was gone. She was particularly amused that she might be able to help more people than the average donor, because she had three and a half kidneys!

She was formerly married to the late Robert “Red” Leonard, a well-known Kenosha area nightclub operator and restaurateur. She married Edward W. Baumann, a newspaper reporter, in the chapel at Carthage College on August 6, 1976. He preceded her in death on November 6, 2012.

She is survived by two daughters, Leslie Ferraro of Makanda, IL and Lisa McCammon of Oak Harbor, WA; step-son, Corey Baumann of Ironwood, MI, seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.

In addition to her parents and husband, she was preceded in death by a brother, Eugene “Smokey” Schend and a step-daughter, Amy Cairo.

Service Info

A Memorial Service in Lenore’s honor will be held at Trinity Lutheran Church at a later date and will be announced at a later time.