Wilma Olson Anderson Seewald
She was born on August 15th, 1920 in Amery, Wisconsin to
Olive (Nelson) Olson and August William Olson. August, better known as
Bill, was in WW I. He died of "spinal tuberculosis" when my
mother was three years old.
My grandmother, Olive, remarried a man named Gustavus Aldophus Hendrickson (known as Gus) a few years later, and my mother gained all sorts of step brothers and sisters.
Mom went to school in Dresser and Osceola, and graduated in 1938. The picture on the left is her high school graduation picture.
After graduation, she went to "NORMAL SCHOOL". Funny name. She became a country school teacher for a couple years.
She met my dad, Kenneth, when he picked up milk for the creamery at her home near Dresser, Wisconsin.
Mom loved many things but her family was always first and foremost. She was a loving and nurturing mother, always putting her family before anything else.
She was an avid reader of romance stories, and loved flowers with a passion. She always had beautiful gardens until the last few years. She could identify pretty much any flower blooming, wild or tame.
Her
memory for people and dates was amazing. She
never forgot a birthday or an anniversary, and always sent a card.
She had a stubborn streak.
If she wanted something, she would probably figure out, by sheer will,
how to get it.
She never wanted to “bother” anybody if she thought it might inconvenience them, but at the same time, she felt people should kind of just be aware of what she needed and figure it out. It was one of her little quirks.
On May 24th, 1989,
she went into respiratory arrest several times during a severe asthma attack.
Due to the heroism of Dale Dobesh, her son-in-law, who gave her mouth to
mouth resuscitation until the ambulance came, she gained another 20 years,
ironically to that exact date. After
that incident, she never left a conversation on the phone without telling her
kids that she loved them.
She married Art Seewald in 1974, and moved to St. Peter until his death in 1989.
Some of my most vivid memories of my mother include:
-Being very small, perhaps
four, and being at my grandmother Olive's house just before Christmas.
My sister, Linda and I both had chest colds, and we were given
“mustard plasters” on our chests….and they got very hot on the skin.
I remember sitting on my mother’s lap in a rocking chair, and I can
remember her singing, “Up on the housetop reindeer pause, out jumps good old
Santa Claus….”
-Having terrible earaches as a
child, and having my mother put hot olive oil in my ear, and rock me in the
rocking chair in the middle of the night. I’m
sure now they were ear infections, but we seldom went to the doctor unless it
was really serious.
-So many small memories.
As
Abraham Lincoln once said, "All that I am or I hope to be, I owe to
my angel mother".
This is how her children felt about her. We will miss her.
Some knew her as Wilma,
But we knew her as "Mom",
And we will miss her every day
Now that she is gone.