Bob Dylan is a legendary figure in the music industry, known for his poetic lyrics and unique sound. Behind every great artist, there is often an influential figure who plays a significant role in shaping their life and art. For Bob Dylan, that person was his mother, Beatrice “Beatty” Rutman Zimmerman, born Beatrice Stone
Dylan’s mother was born Beatrice R. Stone in 1915, and had an older brother, Vernon. Two younger siblings followed, Lewis and Irene. All born in the US, they were the children of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants Benjamin David Solemovitz (born 1883), who changed Solemovitz to Stone, and his wife Florence Sara né Edelstein, herself one of ten children.
In May of 1932 Beatrice Stone graduated from Hibbing High School. She was listed as a member of the Darwin Science Club, Volleyball, and Track. Beatty’s disposition was described as being “debonair” and her pet peeve was “The depression on dates”.
Abe and Beatty married at her mother’s home on June 10, 1934, three days after her nineteenth birthday. Abe was twenty-two at the time. The country was still gripped by the Depression. Sharecroppers from the Midwest were migrating to California. Newspapers reported the desperate crimes of gangsters like Bonnie and Clyde, who were involved in a shoot-out in St. Paul in March. John Dillinger was shot dead in Chicago a couple of weeks after Abe and Beatty honeymooned in the city. It was a strange, hard time, and it would be six years before they could afford to start a family. In the meantime, they lived with Abe’s mother in Duluth.
Bob Dylan’s mother Beatrice “Beatty” Rutman (b. June 13, 1915) died at her home in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota at the age of 84
Marie Munter (Johnson) and her daughter, Jean Pryor and her son Dennis and Beatty Zimmerman (Stone) and her son Bob, Hibbing, 1944. Though living in Duluth Beatty had come back to Hibbing to visit her school friends.
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