Rosalie C. Nelson

Rosalie C. Nelson, 83, Hastings, MN (formerly of Minneapolis, MN), died September 4, 2007.

Mrs. Nelson was born Rosalie C. Carlson on September 16, 1923 in Lindsborg, and grew up near Falun.  She graduated from Bethany College in 1945.  Mrs. Nelson served on the Bethany College Board of Directors from 1975-1979, and was presented the Alumni Award of Merit from Bethany in 1992.  She was a lifetime member of SAI and was active in many church and music organizations.  She retired as an executive secretary from Research Corporation in Minneapolis, MN.

She married Merle T. Nelson in 1946 in Salemsborg.  He preceded her in death.  She was also preceded in death by daughter Charlotte (’72).  She is survived by her sister, Mrs. Seretha E. Johnson of Lindsborg; two daughters, Julie Jasperson (’78) of Lawrence, KS; and Janet Kochendorfer of Hastings, MN; and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on October 6 at Richfield Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN.  Inurnment will be held at a later date at Salemsborg Lutheran Church Cemetery. 

Memorials may be made to Bethany College, 335 E. Swensson St., Lindsborg, KS 67456 or Richfield Lutheran Church, 8 West 60^th St., Minneapolis, MN  55419. 

Irma W. E. Lann Lindquist '30

September 29, 1909 — April 29, 2007

          One would be hard-pressed to find a more gracious, personable, intelligent, supportive lady than Irma Lann Lindquist. 

She had a long and productive life, full of a multitude of joys and some disappointments to overcome.  A model homemaker and mother, she unfailingly provided support in many ways for her late husband, Dr. Emory Lindquist, the universally admired educator and historian who was the most notable chronicler of Lindsborg and the Smoky Valley with its many talented and God-fearing people.

Every book written and published by Emory had traces of her copy-reading and editorial expertise.

Both she and her husband loved Lindsborg, even though for many years together they fulfilled calls to serve elsewhere.

Wichita State University and its predecessor institutions permanently recognized many of the Lindquists’ contributions there.  In addition to WSU building-naming honors and named student honors programs, a noteworthy chapter about Irma is included prominently in the 2001 book edited by James J. Rhatigan, “Presidential Partners: First Ladies of the University,” published by The Wichita State University Foundation.

She also is portrayed prominently in the 1998 biography of Emory Lindquist, “The Difference He Made: A Biography of Emory K. Lindquist,” by Emmet E. Eklund and Marion Lorimer Eklund, published by Bethany College Press.

In Lindsborg, Irma was a top graduate in the Class of 1930 at Bethany College.  Her first career was in teaching.  Abandoning a desire to become a doctor, because of financial requirements, she pursued advanced nursing studies and obtained a Master’s degree in nursing. She taught in Los Angeles, then was Trinity Hospital director of nursing in Kansas City.  Marriage in 1942 to college classmate Emory in his first years as president of Bethany brought excitement to the campus.  She worked at Lindsborg Hospital, first as head nurse, then as hospital manager.  She gave birth to daughter “Beth” in 1948 and to son Kempton in 1953.  In both Lindsborg and Wichita, Irma was a devoted and loving helpmate to her husband, trusted confidante, a loving mother, an active leader in church, and she was actively involved in college and university organizations.

In recent years many people have known Irma as an erudite and active resident of Bethany Home.  That was a capstone to her long and admirable life.

At her memorial service May 3, 2007, son-in-law David Caylor again was called on to give a eulogy — as he had done so eloquently for Emory after he died January 27, 1992.  That tribute to Irma should be long-remembered for everyone in Lindsborg.

                                                                                      —A. John Pearson

EULOGY FOR IRMA LINDQUIST

By David Caylor

“I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

Irma sang those words sometimes, and probably with some of you in the Messiah Chorus or with congregations singing the hymn from the Lutheran Book of Worship.

“I know that my Redeemer lives.”  Sometimes she said the words silently to herself.  Sometimes she read them in church bulletins and publications, or saw them on Olof Olson’s mother’s tombstone, which is just a few feet away from where she and her husband, Emory, will be buried.

            She heard the words at her husband’s funeral.

            She believed those words.

            She lived them.

            She knows that her Redeemer lives.

A few years ago Irma asked me to speak someday at her memorial service.  She didn’t tell me what to say, but I knew she wanted me to speak more for her than about her.  I know that the first thing she would say is “thank you” to all those who came before and during her life, who, whether they knew it or not, contributed in any way to the happiness of her 97 years and to the happiness of those she loves, which includes you.  She would thank you who are here today.  

Irma was a humble woman who would rather console than be consoled. 

She knows that we are thinking of her today, but to her it is more important

that we know that she is still loving us. 

            Even though I am here speaking primarily for Irma, It is still fitting for me to say a little bit about her.  Irma was a prairie girl who grew up on a farm in Axtell, Kansas — Lutheran — loved and loving — with roots in this soil and culture and community deeper than prairie grass.

She learned the best lessons that Lutheran prairie farm-life teaches:  Discipline — physical, mental and spiritual.  Obedience, that great balance between dependability and independence.  Loyalty.  Caring.  Independence.  Patience.  She learned the cycles of life and death.  She embodied duty and beauty.  

As for beauty, exceptionally beautiful as she was, Irma did not see herself as more exceptional or more beautiful than anyone else.  She grew up here, where to be exceptional is the norm.  She learned to see everyone as exceptional and beautiful.  A sunflower is exceptionally beautiful, but in a field of sunflowers the only thing that makes one more exceptional than another is that someone notices one rather than another. 

Irma learned that if you don’t see someone as beautiful, it is because there is something about them you haven’t noticed yet.  Irma chose to notice everyone around her.  She loved the people of Bethany Home.  Here she was a sunflower among sunflowers.

As for the cycles of life and death, she witnessed them as all farm children do, but experienced their full impact  sooner tan many people do.   Her mother died when she was eighteen.  She never forgot that when her father, Frank Lann, told her mother Hilma that she would not survive her last illness, Hilma responded to him by quoting St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “If we live, we live unto the lord, and if we die, we die unto the lord.  So whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord.”  Irma took those words to heart in her own life, and asked that we remember them today in the reading.

            After her mother died, Irma did what she could to be a second mother to her younger brothers and sisters: Waldemar, Lucille, George, Josephine, and Marie.  She understood that no one can really be a second mother, but she committed herself to giving as much of herself as she could give.  There could be no greater testimony to Irma than for us to look at the Lann family and all of its extensions, where we will see a series of great and wonderful people.

            Irma would have been the last to see herself as great, but she fully appreciated the value of her family.

After graduating from Bethany College, Irma worked as a teacher in Frankfort to help fulfill her parents’ desire that the younger children go to college.

Irma lived for others. 

For most of her life, she kept in touch with a multitude of people.  After she moved out of her father’s home, she wrote a letter to him every week for as long as he lived, and for over sixty years she and her sister Marie exchanged weekly letters.  

Irma read Will Durant’s ten volume History of Civilization from beginning to end.  It took her ten years to do it.  Shortly after she had finished reading the books, she read in the paper about a fire that affected the Durants, and she wrote to them, not for herself, but to console them.  After having seen Ariel Durant on a television program not long before, Irma wrote in the letter:  “I could see from your bright blue eyes and eager expression that you have lost none of the joy of living, or your interest in humanity.” 

Those words perfectly describe Irma herself.  Her empathetic letter generated an empathetic response.

Irma had a brilliant mind and an excellent memory, which she continually exercised by reading, writing, paying attention to people, playing word games, solving puzzles, asking questions, thinking, and praying.  She stayed tuned to world events and sports events and to everyday events in the lives of those she loved.  “She’s on top of it,” we would often say of her, and she was. 

She had a sense of humor.  She could laugh at herself if she didn’t get it right,

but beyond that, she had a delightful sense of delight in things and events that others might see as ordinary. She lived a full life because she chose to fill her life with appreciation for the world around her.  Because Irma chose to be where she was,

she rarely complained about anything.  She transformed the old and ordinary into the new and amusing by the simple sharing of her pleasure in life. 

Sometimes she recited poetry or passages that she had first learned in her childhood.  One day a couple years ago, she recalled the Rudyard Kipling poem that begins “When Earth’s last picture is painted,” in such a charming way that Beth and I could almost picture her painting that last picture herself. 

Irma could have been a doctor, medical or academic, but she chose to be a nurse, a wife, a mother, a friend. 

She could have been a philosopher or a theologian.  If she had been a theologian, I might have asked her, “Irma, which is the greater question: ‘What is the meaning of life’, or ‘what is the meaning of death’?”  I imagine her answer would have been something like this:  “To me those are not two questions, but just the beginning and the end of the same question.  What do I know about the meaning of life and death?  I know that our bodies die.  I know that my Redeemer lives, even after his body has died.  So I will live even after my body has died.” “How will you live?” would be my next question, and she would answer in her unpretentious way, as if everyone would say the same:  “In Love.” 

“What do you mean?” I would ask, and in my heart I hear her say: “God is love, and I will live in Him.  In Love.  So if you want to be close to me after my body is gone, if you want me to be close to you, then love.  When my body is gone, all that will be left of me is love.  Where love is, that’s where I will be.  When you love, you don’t even need to think of me, but I will be there with you.  Someday, when your body is gone too, we will be united in love.  That’s how I will live.  That’s how we will live.” 

With that in mind, I think these would be Irma’s last words to you:  “Thank you.  You are beautiful.  I love you.  Know that your Redeemer lives.”

Laura Kelly Shively, 15, passed away Friday, March 2, following a short but devastating illness. She was a lifelong resident of the Castle Pines North community, attending tenth grade at Rock Canyon High School. She attended Christ's Episcopal Church in Castle Rock. A member of the Denver Figure Skating Club, Laura was a passionate figure skater, who skated with uncommon beauty. She finished second and third respectively in events at her level at the State skating championships in August, and eighth in the South West United States regional figure skating competition in October. She is survived by her parents Mark and Maureen (Foley)’80 Shively; her sisters Mary Jane and Sarah Beth; relatives, neighbors, and great friends. Laura was an amazing and incredible person. Her loss in unfathomable and devastating to those who knew her. She will be missed. Visitation, Wednesday, 4-8 p.m., at Horan & McConaty Family Chapel, 5303 E. County Line Rd., in Centennial. Memorial Service, Thursday, 4 p.m., at Christ's Episcopal Church, 615 4th St., in Castle Rock. Interment, Friday, 3 p.m., Mt. Olivet Cemetery, 12801 W. 44th Ave., in Wheat Ridge.