Glendolyn Reinke Lueck's Obituary
Glendolyn “Glennie” Reinke Lueck, age 88 of Wild Rose, WI passed away on Monday, October 27, 2014. Glendolyn was born on May 16, 1926, the daughter of Earl and Dorothy (Jackson) Powell. Glendolyn married her first husband, the late Harold Reinke, on December 22, 1945; and her second husband, the late Oscar “Ron” Lueck, on July 8, 1983.
Glendolyn is survived by her daughters, Janette (Terry) Christie of Gurney, WI, Lorrie (Steve) Savage of Appleton, WI, Vickie (Greg) Sage of Wild Rose, WI, and Patti (Dave) Williams of Wild Rose, WI; her grandchildren Jaime (Kraig) LeGault Elenbaas, Justin LeGault, Nicholas (Stacey) Savage, Ben (April) Savage, Dana Savage, Maggie Savage, Jesse Sage, Amanda Williams, and Emily Williams; her great grandchildren, Ember Sessler, Gracie Ann Sessler, Wyatt Elenbaas, Daphne Savage, Triston LeGault, and Austin LeGault; her step children Denise Toney and Karen (Mark Land) Lueck, plus many other relatives and friends.
Glendolyn was preceded in death by her first husband, Harold Reinke; her second husband Oscar “Ron” Lueck; her parents Earl and Dorothy Powell; infant son Dale Reinke; and her brothers Maurice and James Powell.
A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 11 A.M. at the Holly Funeral Home in Wild Rose, WI. A memorial gathering will be held on Saturday from 10 A.M. until the time of the service at 11 A.M. A burial of the cremains will be held at a later date at the Riverside Cemetery.
I vowed a long time ago that if I had anything to do with a memorial service of someone I loved, I’d do what I could to make sure that their uniqueness and special character were celebrated. These stories I’m about to share about our Mom are not in any kind of chronological order—they’re just as they came to me, and I wanted to share them with you.
Mom and our dad, Harold Reinke, were married for 35 years before he passed away. He was fifteen years older than she was, and was the rock in that marriage. We always remember the quiet, steady way Dad related to our Mom. She always said, “He gave me enough rope to hang myself,” whatever that all meant. They had a good marriage, filled with work and love, keeping up with a house and a cottage, and four kids. She took care of Dad in his last years; also of Aunt Peg, Dad’s sister, and of our Grandma Dorothy. I can’t say she really loved juggling the care of elderly people, a job, a couple of houses, and a minimal social life, but she did it for a long time.
Following Dad’s death, and since she hadn’t been able to go very far for quite a while, she did some traveling and joining of clubs. After she married Ron Lueck in 1983, and moved to Wild Rose, sometimes he had a hard time keeping Glennie “to home.” Once after she’d been on a trip or two with women friends, Ron erected a sign out on their front lawn on Summit Street here in Wild Rose that said, “Wanted: Part-Time Wife.” The neighbors thought that was pretty funny.
I remember the time Ron brought Mom a dozen beautiful roses for some event or other. Mom loved the roses but knew from experience that they didn’t “keep” very well out on her kitchen table. So she put them into the basement in the dark of her beer refrigerator, and when anyone came to the house, she hauled them down the stairs, opened the door of her fridge and showed off her roses, right there among the bottles of Millers!
She took good care of Ron when he got sick, too.
Mom always welcomed anyone that we girls brought into our extended family—friends, boyfriends, friends of friends, step whatevers, exes, in-laws and out-laws, never excluding anyone that I know of—they all were family to Mom. She loved our Nona and Marcia, who grew up next door, and she loved all of her sons-in-law. She wanted us all to be happy and that’s how she felt about her grandkids and great grandkids, too.
She was always so proud of all her grandchildren. She always bragged about what the kids did and how well they did it—sometimes toward the end she gave credit to the wrong one of them, but she sure loved and took pride in all of their accomplishments, whether it was doing well in school, being a great parent, doing good work at a job, fixing up a house, or anything else they attempted. I think she was always flabbergasted that she and Dad managed to produce such an amazing variety of pretty good people. Now, we’re hopeful that her great-grandchildren will continue the legacy. And we all know that there will be a bunch more amazing greats to come.
My sisters and I, apparently, come from a long line of characters. Over the years Mom regaled us with stories like the one about our Great Grandpa George Jackson, in his caulked boots, riding down the Wolf River on the last of the big white pine logs from northern Wisconsin. Great Grandpa George is the ancestor from whom Mom’s grandchildren and great grandchildren inherited their early and awesome ability to snowboard.
From the time we were little, Mom told us about her Grandma Flora’s naming of the town of Pickerel, Wisconsin, which she did so she’d have a place for the mail to arrive when she was first designated the community’s post mistress. Mom later remembered aloud about a great aunt who ran the local “gentlemen’s club” and about the logging camp dog that babysat her while her mother walked older brother, Jim, down the logging road to keep wolves from stealing him away him before he reached the school bus.
Sometimes determining fact from fiction is a little difficult with these family stories, but what’s fact and what’s fiction probably really doesn’t have much to do with anything. It’s the sharing of the good story that’s important.
Mom and her mother always said that Powell County, Kentucky, was named after her father’s family, the ancestors of Earl Powell. Many years ago I did some research and found out that Powell County was established in 1852 and named after Lazarus W. Powell (1812-1867), a Kentucky governor and senator. Well, not one of our family stories once ever mentioned that we were related to that guy, which you’d think they would have included. It causes one to not have real faith in the historical accuracy of oral family histories—at least in ours. But it doesn’t matter.
What matters is the sharing of the funny family stories. And that’s exactly what Glennie always did. She told the story. After hearing it several or a hundred times, and after everybody else is dead who can corroborate the literal truth, the story is the only real substance that’s left.
As far as Glennie goes, I‘m proud to say that she did a great job continuing the family tradition of turning out to be a real character. Our dad was a gentleman, an intelligent, reserved, soft-spoken guy, but no one would have ever described him as a “character.” I have a feeling that the first time our quiet, farm-boy father-to-be met nineteen-year-old Glennie when he and his cousin, one of the Timm boys who already knew Mom, stopped at her house on the way home from the Army, Dad probably felt like, “Whoa! Maybe I need to get back in my helmet!” I know about quiet men being attracted to outgoing women. We’re yin to their yang, and that’s exactly what Mom was to Dad. He didn’t need to talk because she did.
Dad got a big kick out Mom. She made him laugh, and I think he probably hadn’t had enough laughter in his life before Mom. She’d come up with something outrageous and he’d just smile, shake his head and shrug like he was saying, “Well, what can you do with her?”
Mom talked a lot; she was the Gold Standard for Playing Well with Others for her four daughters. And she made us all laugh—she didn’t always know what was so funny, but we all have laughed over the years about Glennie-isms.
Grandson Jesse Sage spent many hours playing cribbage with Mom and almost lost it one time when, as he played a particularly good hand, Mom told him he was a “Horse’s Necktie.” She likely called him a few other names that can’t be mentioned here, but you get the drift.
She also told us that, “Since I had my stroke, I can’t sing anymore.” Those of us who ever heard Glennie sing before her stroke really rolled our eyeballs about that!
After that stroke, which she very smartly self-diagnosed, by the way, she had some temporary word difficulties and the hard part for her was that she knew she wasn’t saying the correct word, but that’s just what came out. A day or two after she was hospitalized I called her and asked her what the doctor had done for her and she told me that he said, “I should take two Toyotas and call him in the morning.” So now, of course, Toyotas are a mainstay in all our medicine cabinets.
At our Aunt Peg’s memorial service in church, I was seated next to my sisters, which is always a mistake in a church. Unknown to me, I had sat on a big piece of clear packing tape which had been left on the pew but then was attach to my slacks. Mom was seated behind us and of course she chose the time when the church was at its absolutely most silent and respectful to reach forward and rip that big piece of tape off my britches. The noise was not pleasant and my sisters thought that what mom had done was the funniest thing ever. We all started to giggle but trying to laugh without making any noise just made the situation worse. Mom couldn’t even yell at us afterward because, of course, we told her she’d started it.
Back when I was maybe a pre-adolescent I remember my little sisters and me following Mom through the Kroger store where she worked at the Valley Fair Shopping Center in Appleton when she went to pick up her weekly check. I know she purposefully went up and down every aisle in the store, just so she could give everyone who was working that day a sassy comment or a bad time.
We four daughters learned by example from Mom the fine art of delicate conversation. In her time, nobody handed out a better line. Mom loved to make people laugh and right up to the end she loved to hear her daughters laugh—she always enjoyed listening to the four of us tell stories and give each other, as she called it, “the raspberries.” Luckily for her, we all turned out to be pretty good at that, too. I know Dad’s genes are in us somewhere, but I know that our “shy and retiring” personalities came straight from our mother.
Mom was the original Includer. I remember, at our great cottage out on Wilson Lake, she was so gracious about inviting people up to the lake for the weekend. As a teenager, one time I came in late after being out with friends and, in the dark, crawled into my lower bunk after everyone was asleep. I woke up with a leg hanging down over the side of the bunk above and I had to make a wild guess as to just which of my friends was up there!
Mom said that back in the 60s some weeks she and Dad had just enough money left on a Friday night for a tank of gas, a case of beer, and food for the weekend at the cottage. That was just about enough to go up to the lake until Sunday night. She was one woman who could stretch food to feed everybody who happened to show up. Of course, in a pinch, the hamburgers she put together were the size of fifty cent pieces, and then Dad, who wasn’t the world’s best grill chef anyway, would frizzle them down further into quarter size bites, but we kids didn’t know that hamburgers on the grill weren’t supposed to look and taste like that, and everybody who was there always seemed to get enough to eat. At least they all had fun!
She made all the kids gallon pickle jars of fresh chocolate chip cookies every week to bring up to the cottage. We girls and all of our friends must have gone through a zillion other gallons of milk as we chucked down those great cookies.
During the time when Dad and Mom were busy building the cottage in the early 60s, Dad was apparently using the only available ladder to paint high up, so Mom rolled over a wheel barrow, set a full case of beer in the middle of it, climbed on top of the beer case with her bucket of oil-based paint, and proceeded to paint, too. My two younger sisters, Lorrie and Vickie, came up to her and asked Mom if they could go swimming somewhere other than our beach. Mom said no, that they had to stay at the cottage. I’m sure they pouted and slunk away, vowing to try her again later, which they did, a couple times, always getting the same negative results. The last time was the charm, for THEM, however. By then Mom was agitated and swung around to holler at them, lost her balance, tipped the paint bucket right down her head, getting it all over her face behind her glasses, and then fell off the beer case and the wheel barrow. Sputtering mad probably didn’t cover it, but Dad climbed carefully down from his ladder, walked over to the dreadful scene and calmly told the girls, “Why don’t you guys go swimming so I can clean her up and calm her down?” So the brats got their way, anyway!
I think she really loved living in the community of Wild Rose when she moved here from Appleton. The small town, “everybody knows your name” atmosphere of the place appealed to Mom. She enjoyed being part of the Lioness’ group, she was a member of the Hospital Auxiliary, and her Birthday Club continued to be a fun event until she couldn’t walk anymore. Back in the day, Mom was a supporter of the Wild Rose Mill Pond Project, and long before that she was part of the Springwater Improvement Association. She did her best at the Labor Day Picnic to raise money and probably sold more chances on big chunks of summer sausage than anyone else in the history of that organization. I remember overhearing some man say, after Mom had hit him up for chance one too many times, “That woman is like a mosquito!” That has stuck with me over the years when organizations ask me to sell tickets for something…and Mom didn’t care. It was all for a good cause.
In her later years she really missed driving her car and going out and about when and where she wanted, and my sisters and I will be forever grateful to her friend Carol Yeska, who showed so much patience while taking Mom with her on various outings to places where she could readily spend our inheritance. No one had more fun than Mom at everything she did. We appreciate Carol’s friendship.
At Rosemore Village she met more friends and enjoyed the company of the residents and the staff there. Her granddaughter, Emily, helped take good care of her. The staff people were very kind to her. While at Rosemore, Mom managed to set a record for the number of navy blue polyester slacks ever kept in one closet on both the first and second floor of the facility. In years past she also won the blue ribbon for having the most mail order packages delivered to one Rosemore resident in any given six-week interval preceding Christmas. She did like her stuff!
One of my favorite Rosemore stories is about the time several years ago that I had to drive Mom over to the Wild Rose Clinic for an appointment. I drove up into the parking lot and right next to us another car was pulling up at the same time. Mom recognized the two sisters in the car as other residents of Rosemore, Margaret and Lois Walters, who were also at the clinic for Margaret’s appointment. Before helping Mom out of her seat belt I went around the cars to help the other ladies out of their vehicle. While taking Margaret’s hand to ease her from her car, I realized that this will likely be the only time in my life that I will ever park next to a 103-year-old woman driving her 106-year-old sister to the doctor. Margaret was blind, but she recognized my voice immediately after my greeting of “Hello, Margaret!”
Mom, a few years ago, was in the hospice program at Rosemore Village, though she didn’t really realize that. She just knew a few additional new people would come and go to and from her room, always doing good “stuff.”
One lovely hospice worker came in on a regular basis to visit with Mom, chatting amiably and trying to draw her out by talking about pictures that were on the wall and asking questions about Mom’s life. Regarding that well-trained hospice staff member, Mom told Vickie one day, “That woman is here quite a bit but she never does ANY cleaning at all when she comes in!”
Mom mostly knew “where” she was, but she just didn’t always know “when” she was. She sort of skipped a bunch of years somehow. She asked Vickie quite often how old she was. One of those times, when Vickie told her “86,” the number came as quite a surprise. I tried to imagine what it would be like to close my eyes for a nap and wake up with someone telling me I was 86. I figure she handled that information pretty well. Under the same circumstances, I might have smacked Vickie.
She also asked Vickie, “What about my knee surgery? When was that?” Vickie patiently replied, “Mom, you never have had knee surgery.” “Well, what are these, then?” Mom asked, pulling up her pant leg and pointing to the front and back of her knee. Vickie tried not to laugh when she had to say, “Mom, those are wrinkles.” Mom said, “Well, that’s disgusting!”
A few weeks ago, during a gorgeous warm fall day, I wheeled Mom out to the patio at Rosemore. She wasn’t an outdoor girl much lately, but she seemed to enjoy being out there. Then we wheeled around front and were talking, and soon we were rolling down High Street toward Wild Rose High School. She was so liking being out I just kept walking. We went all the way past where she and Ron lived on Summit Street and down town to Main Street, past all the shops and bars. We finally turned back at Sluggers Bar just as about 45 partying Waupaca-ites in matching tee shirts poured out of the bar to re-board their party bus! The leader asked if I’d take a group photo of them in front of the vehicle, which I did, and as they boarded, each stopped and bent to gently touch Mom on her shoulder and say something nice about the pretty day, or her lovely white-colored hair, or that they hoped she was having a nice time outdoors. It was just like taking her to their party without the beer! The driver tooted and drove off as Mom and I waved bye! What a good day! Oh, apparently I’d forgotten to sign us out at Rosemore’s desk, so we were absolutely AWOL for the whole two hours that afternoon, though one of the administrators had driven by us and recognized a much-out-of-place Glennie. It was well worth Mom having to endure a Time-Out in her room that night!
Mom never really gave anybody orders about what she wanted said at a memorial service, but many years ago she gave me a copy of a poem that she had cut out of a newspaper and asked if I would remember it when she passed away. It is very well-known now as the poem that ignited the entire Purple and Red club movement that give older women encouragement to be a little outrageous. The poem is a message of empowerment and is a model for aging—a weapon to ward off the Blues of Time.
So here it is, the one thing mom actually said she wanted told to you, in the midst of all the words I’ve said today that would, if she were here, have made her shake her head and chuckle. So, please note that I’m doing my duty. It’s called Warning by Jenny Joseph, an English lady who wrote it in 1961.
Warning
by Jenny Joseph
WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Well, our mom was on it and got a head-start on wearing purple and being outrageous. She was the original Country When Country Wasn’t Cool woman and she started doing all this stuff before it was a club with a uniform. She already had all the appropriate gear in her closet, shirts with glitter and sequins, 147 pairs of flashy, dangling earrings—many of them red and/or purple—and a willingness to live a little on the edge and not worry too much about appropriateness and the expected. She began practicing early and didn’t bother to wait until she was an old woman. I, for one, say, “Good for you, Glennie.” Start early; avoid the rush. We all get there eventually.
What if we get there, to Old Womanhood, having never taken time to wear those flashy earrings that matched our sparkly, sequined sweatshirt, or worn our tennis shoes with our mink coat? What if time ran out and we hadn’t pulled slot machine handles, or stayed out until everyone else in our assisted living facility was safely tucked in bed, or taken trips to Alaska to see the Inside Passage, or yelled BINGO four times in one night, or bought too many unusable gifts and way too many shoes, or put an excess of tinsel on our Christmas tree? What if we always were appropriate and never wore an “Elvis Lives” shirt in a church basement while we doled out ham sandwiches, potato salad, and condolences at someone else’s funeral lunch?
No one remembers all the time we were appropriate and did the expected. Glennie’s message to us is to get a head start on giving our kids some fodder for our own memorial services. Don’t wait until it’s too late. If that happens, all we might get at the service is the newspaper obituary read to the assembled multitude, and we’re all so much more than that.
I hope right now Glennie’s wearing her favorite dangly earrings, has sparkly sequins on her shirt, that she’s driving her own car to a great place to play Bingo, and is planning on giving someone a real hard time!
What’s your fondest memory of Glendolyn?
What’s a lesson you learned from Glendolyn?
Share a story where Glendolyn's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Glendolyn you’ll never forget.
How did Glendolyn make you smile?