Granny B.-aka Ruth Ann Behlmann-became interested in photography when she was very young. Her two older sisters let her put the film into their box cameras. It was love at first sight, and today people often buy their choices from among her thousands of photos and cards. Here is her brief biography in her own words.
I have grown from using a Brownie camera to a Panasonic Lumix! Since 2005, I have 17 years of photos in my computer which need to be seen by others. As Matthew 5:16 urges- Let Your Light Shine.
In our fast-paced, unstable world of today, I find myself constantly looking for the simple things that God gives us each and every day. And snap it! Landscapes are my favorite including nature, flowers, rainbows, sunrises, sunsets and the moon.
I have received awards and-and even more-I have sold greeting cards and framed pictures. Bruning Bank in Kearney bought my SHELTER-a photograph in black and white with cows under a hedge apple tree. As you enter the Coppermill Restaurant in Kearney, you will see my WATER WHEEL taken at the Cancer Garden in Humboldt, Nebraska.
One of my greatest joys in the UNK English Department was collaborating with poet Don Welch. We created twelve Poem Cards in 2013, 2015 and 2016-with Don’s poems on one side and my photo on the other.
I’ve just had four new postcards printed. One is of a sculpture which I’ve been given permission to use from Cambridge, Nebraska sculptor Sondra L. Jonson. It is her Crane Sculpture that welcomes people at the south entrance into Kearney.
Grandma Moses is my inspiration. I am 81 now and hope to live to 101 as she did. Along the way, I’ll take becoming famous if the Good Lord is willing. April 20, 2022.
Grandma B. also sent comments on the photos appearing in our gallery.
The yellow flower is entitled Angel’s Trumpet-or Datura-or Moonflower. It is special to me because my dad had one when I was little. I took that photo at my house in Kearney on 09-01-2008. It is a Just As It Is photo-no editing. This photo won in Kearney’s Picturing Peace contest on 09-21-2015. A reception was held at the Merryman with Rep. Foley.
Two Horses was taken on 07-17-2016 at Donna Posusta’s farm near Kearney. I needed a match for Don Welch’s Two Horse’s poem. Don never knew I got chiggers doing that, but he did get to see that picture before he passed away. This photo also won a contest here in Kearney.
Shelter was taken on 09-28-2008 near Meadville, Missouri off Highway 36. I wanted to get a picture of a Covered Wooden Bridge at Locust Creek State Historic Site there. As I turned and looked across the road, these black cows were standing on a hill under a Hedge Apple Tree. The black and white photo of Shelter hangs in the Bruning Bank here in Kearney.
Water Wheel was taken on 09-26-2020 at Humboldt, Nebraska at the Southeast Nebraska Cancer Memorial Garden. Jan Wilhelm is the caretaker for that place-beautiful with many flowers, bushes and each cancer remembered with signs. Her Grandpa, Jesse Nemechek, Sr., built this Water Wheel in the 1950’s and it is still running at the Cancer Garden. She is very proud knowing the photo of her grandpa’s Water Wheel is hanging in the Coppermill Steakhouse entryway in Kearney.
American Farmer was taken 07-17-2013 of Cambridge, Nebraska sculptor Sondra L. Jonson’s. A casting of that sculpture sits in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and another at the City Park in Cambridge, Nebraska. Mike Kubic from Cambridge was the model.
Among her other work, which can be seen at her website, she created the Mosaic Baptism Font at St. James Catholic Church in Kearney. Her Crane Sculpture welcomes people entering on the south side of Kearney. Sondra was chosen to create the President’s Award in 2019. Many of her Bronzes have sold across the United States and Europe. Sondra and her work can be found elsewhere on the Kearney Creates site.
Editor’s note: Ruth doesn’t mention it but she was a long-time Secretary for the UNK Department of English, where she was very helpful to writers such as this editor, the then Reynolds Chair of Poetry Charles Fort, prolific writer and scholar Susanne George Bloomfield. English was then housed in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities, so many of Ruth’s closest colleagues staffed departments of Art, Theater, Dance, and Music.
