My dad began to fail seriously, and died in August of 1975 at the age of 79 years.

In February or March of 1975, my dad had a bout of the flu, and after he recovered, it was easy to see that he was not well. He had suffered with emphysema for quite a long time (most likely caused by his 50 years of smoking), and he just didn't look well. David and I went over to visit for a weekend, and I really noticed how frail my dad looked. 

In August, my cousin had sent my Aunt Rachel to visit my mom and dad. It was probably good timing because that was the last time brother and sister saw each other. While she was at their house, my father became very ill, and was taken to the hospital. My sisters made sure Aunt Rachel got on the plane back home, and for the next three days, the family watched and waited. Then, one of my sisters called me and said we should come because he didn't have much longer. I remember the group of us sitting in his hospital room, and how he struggled to 'stay' with us. Later that night, mother got a phone call telling her that he had died. Here are the words from the last part of her 'life story...'

"In August, 1975, Wayne died, and as of this writing, ten long years have passed. Many of my old friends and loved ones are gone, and I am just about 'the last leaf on the tree' now. 

"I thank God for my wonderful family, my good friends, my good health and so many blessings of my long life. There has been so much happiness, and yes, some sadness too, but that is the way life is...

"I thank my children for being so good to me. I hope I will never be a burden to them. I remember you all daily in my prayers and hope to see you all on the other side of this life."

                                                                                              (Signed) Wilma Barrett Cooper

                                                                                                               (Put to paper in 1985) 

David and I tried consistently to have a baby. I was in my mid-30's and had suffered a miscarriage while taking classes at ISU. I had never had any problems with my three former pregnancies, and I did not realize that I probably should have seen a doctor, and perhaps had a D&C. 

After we were settled in Kanawha, I got pregnant again, and on Mother's Day weekend, I had plans to go visit my kids for the day, but when I got out of bed, I began to bleed profusely. I suppose I was a bit dizzy and not thinking very well, but I was determined to get down to see the kids on this special day. Well, that was just not going to happen. I was hemorrhaging heavily, and soon realized I was too dizzy to drive. David took me to the hospital in Britt, where I lost our little baby. It was only a few weeks into development. I am fairly pragmatic and felt that the fetus was not healthy, and not meant to survive, and after a day at the hospital, I returned to Kanawha. We continued to try to get pregnant. (I suppose we should have had some blood tests, because as it turns out, David has AB- blood and I have 0+ blood. Perhaps our inability to keep an intact pregnancy had something to do with that fact. But, we kept on trying, and that fall (1977), I realized that I was again pregnant. (I was 37 years old, so some of the difficulty we had been having may have been due to my age). I visited the doctor in town, and he found blood in my urine. He told me to go to bed and rest completely to see if it would disappear. That was Dr. Lancelot Eller (and he was really a 'knight in shining armor!') Dr. Eller came every day, across the city park from his office, and picked up a urine sample, and later called me to tell me there was still blood in the sample. I stayed on the hide-a-bed couch in our living room for a month, and then after no change in my situation, Dr. Eller recommended that I see a gynecologist and a kidney specialist in Mason City. I visited both doctors, and was not happy with the visit with the kidney guy. He acted as if I had some horrible ailment, and said he should order an x-ray, but couldn't because of my pregnancy. I left his office feeling like I might have kidney cancer or some other horrible problem. The gynecologist told me that nothing seemed to be getting worse, so I should just go on home and come back every month to have my urine checked. Well, the pregnancy continued, and soon I was in my ninth month, and everything seemed okay, even though I still had blood in my urine. 

Our little daughter was named after the family friend who was like a second mother to David and after my aunt who had been very supportive of my efforts to get my teaching degree, and who had been my second mother all those summers at Potato Lake. She was born in June, and once again I had a child! 


One of our elderly neighbors (a lady I visited almost daily as I walked to the post office and back - about a block from our house), told me that she thought David walked like he had wings on his feet. We were pretty happy to have our little daughter...

Our baby was baptized in July, and wore the same baptismal gown that was worn by her grandfather, Arthur Rueber (this gown had been worn by each of the Rueber children, so actually she wore the same gown as both her grandfather and her father had worn.) We had a little dinner and ceremony, and had out-of-town visitors who were anxious to meet out little girl. (On the way home from the hospital, we had stopped to visit Lawrence and Alitza Boehnke so they could 'meet' little daughter. Lawrence asked David if it had been a boy, would we have named our baby 'Lawrence.' David told him, 'No.' But, in retrospect, I wished I had told him that a boy would have been named 'Benjamin Karl.' Karl was Lawrence's middle name...that would have pleased him immensely because he and his wife had been unable to have children of their own. But, Lawrence died a few weeks later, never knowing that our daughter would have been Benjamin Karl, had she been a boy... Oh, the sadness of words not spoken...)

Ann Rueber brought Dave and Diane Hansen to the baptism at Kanawha Lutheran Church. Here they are admiring the baby. Diane said she was so happy to at last have a 'little sister!'

These are David's nephews, Scott and Donald Timmermann, enjoying meeting their new cousin. (Donald was eventually found to have 'juvenile' diabetes, and died at the age of 34.)

I had decorated the room we used as the nursery with a fun hand-painted wall mural, and this was where our little girl slept and spent a lot of happy hours playing. 

Since I was working for The Kanawha Reporter newspaper, my boss wanted a good Halloween photo for the front page, and he chose to get this shot of our little girl inside our jack-o-lantern! You can probably see the big plastic bag I put her in before inserting her into the pumpkin...kept her clothes dry and clean! This photo was taken in our dining room, and you can see that this is one happy baby!

Stay tuned...