Roy Borgen (1910-1971) grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. He and Mary Jane Fritz (1915-1982) met in Chicago, Illinois, where they lived in the same apartment building. They married and had 2 boys, Richard and Charles (1937-2021).

In 1939 the Borgen family moved to Lawrence, Kansas where a member of Mary’s family, Alpheus “Scrappy” Marshall, had opened the Dine-A-Mite Inn, a restaurant and dance hall just outside of city limits on the southwest corner of 23rd and Louisiana Streets. The Borgens ran the business for 23 years, eventually buying Marshall out. It was a popular spot for locals and students from the University of Kansas (KU). Roy and Mary Borgen were also members of the Plymouth Congregational Church and were active in the Lawrence Elks Club.

Roy Borgen had heart trouble in 1961 and his son, Charles “Chuck” Borgen, ran the Dine-A-Mite Inn for a year until it sold and he left to serve in the Army in 1962. Chuck Borgen then managed the family liquor store in the Hillcrest shopping center at 9th and Iowa Streets until his retirement in 1992. He married Carol Kitt in 1958 and had three children: Lori, Lea and Lance. Borgen enjoyed sailing and flying, served in the Army Reserve, and was a member of the Traveler’s Protective Association. He and his parents were avid sports fans, especially supporting the KU Jayhawks.

[Information pulled from collection material and the obituaries of Roy Borgen and Chuck Borgen in the Lawrence Journal World.]

LaVancha Marshall Stalmok was born in Fort Madison, Iowa. She lived and taught school in Leavenworth, Kansas and Horton, Kansas. In 1941 she graduated from the University of Chicago at age 46 with a bachelor’s degree in art. She recieved her master's degree the next year and taught in Chicago for the next 18 years.

Stalmok spent the last years of her life at the Brandon Woods Retirement Community in Lawrence, Kansas. Some of her paintings, including a portrait of her husband and a 1949 painting of one of her third-grade art classes, were on display at Brandon Woods while she lived there.

[Information pulled from an April 26, 1995 Lawrence Journal World article on her hundredth birthday.]