Dwight “Rex” Hoffman Macbeth: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Comedy”

Dwight “Rex” Macbeth: 1934-2006

            My uncle Rex Macbeth was an entertaining guy. He enjoyed the spotlight—he’d been a race car driver, a race announcer, and amateur historian. Later in his life, he built up a tire business in Mankato with his second wife Rosie—R&R Tires for Rex and Rosie.

            Rex settled on radio as the perfect venue for his business advertising. He wanted his ads to stand out, to be memorable. He, like his sister, my mom, had always enjoyed writing poetry. His poems tended to be wry and funny, so he wrote humorous poems for his ads, and did the voice-overs himself.

            The ads became very popular—radio deejays claimed they’d get requests for his ads instead of for songs. He put together a collection of his poems in a self-published book, which he sold at the tire shop along with the vintage guns he collected.

            Here are a couple of his poems that make me smile and really capture his comic personality. They were both used as radio advertisements for R & R Tires.

Biographical info:

Rex was born November 1, 1934 to Nora Hoffman Macbeth and Ivan Macbeth. It was a home birth; he was born in my grandparents’ bedroom on their farm near Eagle Lake, Minnesota. My mother, Ione Macbeth, was his only sibling. She was seven years older than he was, an age gap that was hard to bridge, which led to a rather strained relationship in adulthood. Rex grew up on his parents’ farm helping his dad, and told some funny tales about farming in the 1940s and Grandpa’s adventures on his old tractor. Rex attended elementary school at the Tivoli one-room schoolhouse, and was a member of one of the first classes to graduate from the new high school in Mankato.

                          

Ione, Nora, Ivan and Rex Macbeth, about 1948

            Rex’s birth name was Dwight Hoffman Macbeth, but he never cared for the name Dwight, and started calling himself Rex when he was a young man. He served in the Army and was stationed in Germany for a time. When he left the army and returned to Mankato, he raced motorcycles and midget sports cars, did motorcycle “hill climbs” (sort of an early version of the X Games involving driving a motorcycle up steep hillsides at high speeds) and ran a gas station in Mankato. His first marriage, to Susan Sorell, produced one child, Jessica Macbeth, but ended in divorce. Rex married Rosie Schaefer on New Year’s Eve 1977.

Rex was fascinated with the history of the Old West, especially the exploits of the James Gang. He did a lot of research and collected vintage guns related to the time period. He spoke on his research to civic groups, and worked as an announcer for stock car races in addition to running his tire business with Rosie.

Sadly, Rex developed a blood disorder in his sixties that led to his death on July 14, 2006 at the age of 71. I miss his wonderful stories and incredible sense of humor. He was a true original.