Edna Grotelueschen, RIP

The Nebraska District of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church published this obituary :

Edna Grotelueschen Pieper, Commissioned Minister-Teacher Emeritus, departed this life on August 8, 2006, in Seward, Nebraska. She was born on May 7, 1915, in Leigh, Nebraska, to Emil and Rosa (Wilke) Grotelueschen. She married Lester Pieper on September 23, 1989, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Goehner.

She graduated from Concordia Teachers College (now University), Seward, in 1949, where she also received a Masters Degree in 1958. Schools served include: St. Paul, Ute, Iowa; Emmanuel, Ft. Wayne, Indiana; and St. John, Seward, where she served for 31 years before retiring.

Mrs. Pieper is survived by her husband; step-son and wife, Dale and Susan Pieper, Bergheim, Texas; step-daughter and husband, Carol and Dean Hillhouse, Lincoln, Nebraska; five step-grandchildren; seven step-great-grandchildren; two brothers, Eugene and Maxine Grotelueschen,Columbus, Nebraska, and Martin Grotelueschen, Leigh, Nebraska; two sisters, Evelyn and Rev. Paul Mueller, Sioux City, Iowa, and Rose Marie and Fred Graft, Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Clarence Grotelueschen and Gilbert Grotelueschen; and two sisters, Anna Bock and Velma Frese.

Steve Sylwester remembers:

Miss Grotelueschen was my First Grade teacher. She was the First Grade teacher for approximately 1,000 children during her 31 years of teaching at St. John's Lutheran School in Seward, which is a magnificent achievement.

The most amazing thing about Miss Grotelueschen was that she somehow grew shorter as I grew older. In fact, we were about the same height when I became an adult!

The things I remember about First Grade include:

learning to read with Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot;

making puppets to tell the Chicken Little story;

having Show-and-Tell once a week;

and — my most favorite thing of all — Miss Grotelueschen's daily Riddle Box.The Riddle Box was great fun and wonderfully intriguing! Every morning, Miss Grotelueschen would give us clues about what was in the box, and the clues were given in the form of a riddle. We were allowed to shake the box during the course of the day to gain clues from listening to how the object moved when it was rattled, but that was it. Miss Grotelueschen would repeat the clues if asked, and would sometimes add a clue. At the end of the school day, we would make our guesses, and then the box would be opened. I do not recall that there was any reward for guessing correctly, but the Riddle Box did not need a reward — it was just plain fun!