Eulogy for Lila A. Nelson, ( Mrs. Orville J. Nelson)

Died at home, Section 29, Town of Ellington, Outagamie County, Wisconsin

Lila Margaret (Andrew) Nelson, age 98 years 9 months and 4 days, wife of Orville  J. Nelson died at home on Hospice at 11:45  PM on Feb 21, 2019, due to heart failure caused by a calcified aortic valve which restricted the flow of blood and atrial fibrillation.  Lila Margaret Andrew was born on May 17, 1920, at her Grandparents Andrew's farm in Section 31, Green Garden Township, Will County, Illinois, near Manhattan, Illinois. She was the only child of Edward Charles Andrew and Mary Margaret ( Redden ) Andrew. Her father's parents were Charles and Julia ( Russell) Andrew of Green Garden Township, Will County Ill. The Russell families were among the earliest settlers in 1852 and Andrew's in 1862. Her mother's parents were George and Margaret, "Maggie", ( Spicher) Redden of Jackson Township Will County Ill, where the Redden family were early settlers in 1843.  She lived on the farm on which she was born until 1927 when her parents had an auction and moved to Manhattan, Ill. Her father Edward was an agent for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1927 to 1972. Lila attended the Bettenhausen one-room rural school on the corner of Hwy 45 and Pauline Road for one year, 1 ^st grade, which is the same school where her mother had taught. Lila was at the  Manhattan Illinois village school for the other 7 grades and the first two years of high school. She lived in Manhattan across from the Evangelical church where her Sunday School teacher was Hazel Younkers. She graduated from the Joliet Township High School at Joliet Illinois, in the class of 1938 with her cousins Erma Schumacher and Clyde Weber in the same class, and from the Joliet Township Junior College in 1940 with teacher training and practice. Lila then taught all 8  grades for three years ( 1940-1943) in that same Bettenhausen one-room school where she had first grade at a salary of $80 per month. In the summer months, she completed teaching education classes from Northern Illinois State Teachers College at DeKalb, now DeKalb University. She managed to save enough money, and in the fall of 1943 started at the U of I at Urbana, tested out of some subjects, and earned her BS in Business Education in one year and summer.  In the fall of 1944, she began teaching the business subjects, typing, shorthand, accounting, office practice, etc. in Momence High School, Momence, Ill where she taught for 4 years.  There she met fellow teachers and roommates, Mary ( Liffick ) Crum and Mary Langhorst who were life long friends. In the summer of 1945 she and two friends from U of I, Pat Owens and Mary Trebellis, went by train to San Diego, CA to Pat's cousin and found rooms and jobs for the summer. Lila worked in the navy base on North Island traveling by streetcar and ferry each day to the base's Telephone Department, typing the phone book stencils and running the mimeograph to make the navy phone books. WWII ended in August'45 and Lila returned to teach at Momence. In the summer of 1946, she began working on an MS in Business Education at UW-Madison, on the advice of a fellow student at U of I that the lakes made Madison cooler in the summer than at Urbana, Ill.  The summers in Madison were not exactly cool either: No air conditioning in those days. In the summer of 1948, Mary Liffick wrote that she would be teaching at Taylorville, Il and not back at Momence. Lila decided that if Mary was not returning to Momence to teach she did not need to either, and put her name in the placement office at UW-Madison. Shortly after, Lila became a Neenah High School business education teacher in 1948. She enjoyed teaching at Neenah, She completed the MS in Business Ed at UW-Madison in 1950. At a Neenah YWCA square dance, Lila met Orville Nelson who had come with his sister, Arlo. Lila and Orville were married on Sunday, February 24, 1952, on Lila's grandmother's, Maggie C. Redden's, 81 ^st birthday, at the Manhattan Methodist Church where she sang in the choir.  Lila passed away just two days short of her 67 ^th wedding anniversary. In those days married women were not allowed to teach in the Neenah School District but could finish the term.  George Akin, superintendent at Hortonville, came to the farm and asked her to teach at Hortonville on the third floor of the old three-story school downtown. There she met another long time teaching friend, Alice ( Mc Vicar) Jandourek. After her children were in school Lila taught the business subjects at Xavier High School in the latter part of the 1960s, then at Hortonville High School the second time, and lastly at St Mary's High School in Menasha from where she retired in 1983. She had many long time friends who were teachers in these and other high schools:  Nelda and Harriet Voskuil, Fran Hinterthuer, Rosemary Lauer, Diane Colombe, Alice Jandourek, Ruth Bermann, Kathy Gosz, Rosemary Trettin, Sister Ann Francis, Sister Mechtilde Wieber, and others. For many years Lila played in a bridge club comprised of Neenah school teachers until most all of them had passed away: Elizabeth ( Beth) Gotham, Kathleen ( Kay) Marr,  Dorothy Keine, Alice DuBois, Norma Brazeau, Janet Menning, Evelyn Van Beck, Blanche Mc Intyre,  Helen Hughes, Edith Broetzman, Dorthy Burgdorff, Phyllis Furman ( Brown),  Margaret Kuchenberg, Thora Anderson, Ruth Burdick, Castella Beisenstein, Florence Spanbauer.

Lila belonged to several bridge clubs over the years and enjoyed a game of bridge. After she retired from teaching she took up playing golf with longtime friends, Vera Holz ( Mrs. Milton Holz) and Irene  Holz ( Mrs. Forrest Holz).

Lila was active in her community.  She was an active member of the Never Idle Home Makers Club. ( Wisconsin Association for Home and Community Education) for over 50 years where her friends spanned several generations of mothers and daughters.  Treasurer of the Ellington Union Cemetery Association for 35 years which included correctly locating where to dig the graves by maps and buried plot markers which were located with a pitchfork.  Combined Fund of Ellington from its inception to its end and did the house to house collections for the combined fund. Lila and Gale ( Mrs. Francis) Bohman organized the registration for the  Red Cross sponsored summer swimming lessons for many years and organized the bus transportation for the one year that the Shiocton park swimming pond was used for the lessons. Lila worked in the Hortonville School PTO, the Hortonville cub scouts for her sons, and Hortonville High AFS Club.  In 1956 Mr. Lawrence Moder part-owner of the Borchardt and Moder Funeral Home in Hortonville came to the farm and asked if their rural school district in Ellington adjacent to the village's school district would consider combining with the village's school district to form a larger school with more to offer such as a kindergarten. Lila wanted a kindergarten and advocated closing the local rural school district ( Ellington District #1, Pleasant Vale / Manley School) and combining with the Hortonville District. After the adjacent nearby rural school districts combined Hortonville was able to build a new school to replace the old 3 story school. The annual school picnic for Pleasant Vale / Manley School continued on as a community picnic for at least 25 years after that. Lila did the coordinating work and put together the Town of Ellington's historical exhibit for the state's sesquicentennial observation at the county fairgrounds and the Town of Greenville's rural school's history for the state sesquicentennial. Orville served as the town board chairman in Town of Ellington for 36 years and Lila answered the phone, relayed the messages, and helped him as needed in that task for those 36 years. Her neighbors and others living nearby were also friends of many years:  Fern Greinert, Violet (Laird) Milbauer, Marilyn Bohman, Gale Bohman, June Brandt, Beverly Brandt, Silvia Lamm, Mary Lamm, Alice Riemer, Dorothy Nelson, Karen Manley, Betty Maertz, and many others.

Lila was active in the church. She taught Sunday School at the Stephensville Methodist Church, She and Orville were the youth group leaders for the Stephensville and Medina Methodist churches in the early 1950s.  Lila was an active member in the church women's society ( Women's Society of Christian Service). After the Stephensville church closed in 1966 she and Orville were members at Center Emmanual U.M.. Church and later at Faith Community U M Church in Greenville from when it was built in 1969.  Lila worked with the Adult
Fellowship and on many pie and ice cream socials and corn roasts, ladies auxiliary and fall bazaars, bake sales, and with the quilting ladies up until the last years when no longer able.  She helped Orville prepare about 40 years of adult Sunday school class lessons and questions for as long as Orville was able to teach it.

Lila enjoyed gardening and growing flowers.  She and Orville have lived on his family's farm ever since they were married in 1952 and in the same house in which Orville was born November 30, 1925, and in which Orville's mother, Jennie Laird,  was born in on July 17, 1895. In 1994 it became a century farm.  Lila grew large gardens until the last years and grew flowers of all kinds to give away and brighten the lives of others.  Lila was a very good cook, baker, and hostess who served many guests over the years.  She had to make the meals for everyone who came to help Orville on the farm which was not a small task. Lila enjoyed singing, playing the piano, participating in the square dance club at the Bean City Ball Room in the 1950s and early '60s and participating in the Appleton Masonic Couples Dance Club in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Lila outlived her six Univ. of Illinois college friends who were all younger than her.  They all roomed together in the same Victorian house during the war in 1943-1944. The dorms were full of young men many receiving officer training; the young women had to live in private homes. Lila's U of I friends would gather for visits and reunions:  Mary (Trebellis) Konrad, Pat ( Owens ) ( Byrd)  Mayo, Rita (Kowlaski) Willis, Alice ( Diakun) Bolin, Betty ( Butler)Halttunen, Fran ( Plagge) Hager.

She was survived by her husband Orville for 7 days until Orville died on March 1 ^st after a stroke on February 13 ^th ,  and her sons James and Robert.  She is survived by two nieces and two nephews on Orville's side: Judy Abendschein (Michael Mc Neese, Mississippi), Shaleen Melvin ( Wyoming),  Michael Avants (Wyoming), and Sean (Susan) Avants.,(Wyoming).

She was preceded in death by her sisters-in-law and their husbands:  Arlo ( Nelson) ( Abendshein) Sell,(October 1, 2016), and John Abendschein ( October 1960) and Everett Sell,(August 1993), Ruth ( Nelson) Avants,(April 14, 2015), and Robert Avants.

Lila  is survived by younger cousins in her mother's family: Alvin ( Betty) Schumacher, Robert Schumacher, Ruby ( Sam) Bargas, Willa Jean Canary, Althea Collins, Vivian Hammett,  Gene (Marie) Schaaf, Marilyn (Gale) Riggle, Dan (Linda) Eaton, Marjorie Eaton,

Lila was preceded in death by cousins in her mother's family: Grace ( Preston) West, Marion ( Preston) Ayers, Norma ( Preston) Bundy, Erma ( Schumacher) Vanderzant, Clyde Weber, Daryl Weber, Kenneth W. Roderick, Beverly ( Redden) Valy, William R. Redden, Don Schaaf, Margaret Eaton. Mrs. Clyde Weber ( Evelyn), her cousin's wife, and Lila were very close friends.

Lila was the youngest and was preceded in death by all of her cousins on her father's ( Andrew) side and their spouses. Lila was the last one living:  Earl ( Doris  ) Robinson, Melvin ( Sally) Robinson, Russell (Margaret ) Robinson, Iola Robinson, Arlene Robinson, Clarissa Hodder.

Lila was preceded in death by all her aunts and uncles on her mother's side: Eva ( Redden) and Bert Preston, Verna ( Redden) and Art Schumacher, Rachel( Redden) and Edward Weber, Lorene (Redden) and Kenneth Roderick, George and Anna Redden and Catherine Redden,  William and Dorothy Redden, Leona (Redden) and Harry Schaaf, Charlotte ( Redden) and Daniel Eaton.

Lila was preceded in death by all her aunts and uncles on her father's side:

Susan ( Andrew) and Herbert Robinson, Mabel ( Andrew) and E. Wesley Robinson, William and Mabel Andrew, Grace (Andrew) and Albert Bitner, Elsie( Andrew) and Frank Uhde.

She was preceded in death by her grandparents: George and Margaret C  ( Spicher) Redden of Jackson Township Will County, Ill, and Charles and Julia ( Russell) Andrew of Green Garden Township, Will County, Ill.

She was preceded in death by long time friends from her childhood:  Dorothy ( Schramm) and Larry Werner, Evelyn  Hollenberg, Blanche, and Bob Dyer, Ruth (Geipel.) Hendley.

Lila had large beautiful brown eyes and nearly always a smile, always a gentleness and grace, and was a caring person whose concern for the wellbeing of others showed whenever she spoke.  Lila was blessed to have a very sharp mind, as sharp as a tack, up to her last breath.  Her favorite bible verse was John 3:16 and it was said that she was the image of  Luke 10:25-28.  We have lost a great and wonderful caring lady, but we are blessed to have the many memories from those 98 years 9 months and 4 days and the peace and lessons the memories give.

ADDENDUM:

The following was added by her son, Robert, in Lila's and Orville's funeral service on Saturday, March 9, 2019.

Lila Margaret Andrew was named after a friend of her mother's, (Mary Redden Andrew's), who was named, Lila Hackenberg Langley, who lived near Elwood, Illinois and died in childbirth before mother was born in 1920.  A second friend of her mother was Lila Marie Hatheway who was born, July 15, 1898, the same year as her mother, Mary Redden Andrew, and died  May 4, 1919.  With two friends both deceased named Lila Mary named her daughter after them.

At age 15 months Lila's picture is on the front page of the Joliet  Illinois  Herald News for Sunday, August 28, 1921, cost 5 cents.  Under the title " Six of Will County's Perfect Babies".  She won the Will County Farm Bureau's annual baby contest at the annual Will County Farm Bureau Picnic at Dellwood Park on Saturday, Aug 27, 1921. 84 babies, ( 45 boys and 39 girls were examined by Dr. S.S. Winner and Miss Anna Rodgers of the Illinois State Health Department.  In the category of twelve months to two years Lila Margret Andrew, 15 months, of Green Garden  Township was first in that category. Will County farmers packed Dellwood park with more than 5000 people arriving before noon and more than 7000 people by 2:30 PM. More automobiles were parked there than at any time since the park's opening.  The Better Babies Contest was a favorite event with entries continuing to come in until 4:30 PM.  The article says Lila's cousin's ( Grace Preston West's) husband, John West, won the three-legged race for men.  It never hurts to start out perfect.

Since December 27, 1954, Lila and Orville kept a guest book.  It was given to them for Christmas that year. When a guest book's pages were filled another one started to where there were four guest books. About half the time someone would remember to get the guest book out for the guests to sign. There were 2,030 people who signed the guest books at 650 different visits or occasions.  They were often served at least one meal, dinner, and sometimes two, supper as well.   Lila had many, many meal preparations;  Lots of cooking and baking.  Lila was a very good cook.

In 1927 Lila's mom and dad sold 900 bushels of oats at one dollar a bushel and bought a brand new 1927 Chev for that same $900.

Both Lila and Orville had some near misses in childhood which could have cut their lives short.  In 1930 Lila was in the back seat of their new 1930 blue Chev coup in downtown Manhattan, Illinois when a man passed her dad in his car and stopped his car immediately in front of them.  Her dad then pulled around him to pass him but did not see the train coming.  It was the Wabash Railroad nonstop passenger train between Chicago and St Louis. It was The Wabash Cannon Ball. It was not stopping. The people on the other side of the tracks had their mouths open.  Mother remembers looking up at the light on the locomotive. The car rear bumper just cleared that locomotive.

The following was mentioned at the funeral by Beverly Brandt:  Lila made a birthday cake every year for Beverly after her mother, June Brandt, passed away in December 1966.  Lila made Beverly a birthday cake for 52 years. In the 52 years of birthday cakes; all were angel food cakes except for the very last one.

END OF FUNERAL EULOGY ON SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019