Nada Evelyn Lannigan Fredericksen

NADA EVELYN LANNIGAN FREDERICKSEN
April 11, 1923 to January 14, 2010

EULOGY from Memorial Service
Read by Daughter, Patti Ann Fredericksen Colt

Before I start I’d like to thank the family members who made the journey to be with us for this service – aunts, uncles, and so many cousins – we appreciate your being here with us on this day. If anything comes from this, it is to take those moments you feel disconnected and remember this moment and who you belong to.

Also, we’d like to thank the church for all their support. This church and the church family were a huge part of our lives growing up. My parents were among the first to pledge to build this building. I see so many familiar faces here, dear faces and we’re deeply appreciative that you came to remember with us.

We are here to celebrate the life of Nada Evelyn Lannigan Fredericksen.

The morning my mother died I sat down and wrote this eulogy. I fired it off to Gary, who emailed me back and said: “Looks great. You’re reading it.”

We selected April for her memorial service because she was born on April 11th and would have been 87 this month. She also loved spring.

When Nada was 7 years old, the family left Smith Center, Kansas for Caldwell, Idaho looking for work. Now, if any of you knew my mother, you’d know she had a real temper. So when she’d tell the story of how they moved from Kansas to the Northwest when she was seven, we liked to tease her that she came west in a covered wagon. Yes, we stood back and waited for the smoke to come from her ears. Actually, it was a Flivver, one step up from a Model-T, and we teased her about that, too.

Her family finally settled in Boundary County. She attended Sheridan school and then the Bonners Ferry High school. She was a good student and had a particular aptitude for foreign languages. She was a student assistant for her foreign language teacher and graded papers for her in French, Spanish and Latin. Her teacher inspired her to become a teacher, but economic conditions prohibited that dream from becoming reality.

She met my dad in high school. We credit my dad’s father with that. Grandpa Fred had five sons and would take them to the Copeland Hall for dances. He was pretty strict about making the boys dance instead of finding trouble outside. My dad being real shy, usually propped himself against a wall and watched. Well, Grandpa Fred decided that he’d had enough of that and introduced himself to a pretty little gal – my mom, and asked her if she’d dance with his son. My mom –being an outgoing, smart young lady, said yes. And that, as we say, was the beginning of history.

Our parents married in June 22, 1941. Their early years were marred by World War II – family deaths and events that fifty years later my mom couldn’t talk about without crying – but there were good times, too. Their home, bought in June of 1943 was their first and only home, on four lots on the south hill of Bonners Ferry. This house was the center of our family for the sixty four year duration of their marriage including the birth of Gary and Karen, later building on to the house, and the birth of Mark and Patti.

Through all that, Mom’s exuberance for things shone through. She made a wonderful home. She gave of herself to her community and her church. Her views on life and living are present in the lives and thoughts of her children. When I graduated from high school and didn’t know what I wanted to do, she sat me down and said go to college, make a life that will let you take care of yourself. And I did. So did we all.

Newspapers were important to her. One was delivered to the house as long as anyone could remember. She read it every day and loudly complained about the political slant of the editorial pages. Our interests in world and national events and many of our political opinions were strongly influenced by her.

Mom created and maintained many family traditions. Her oyster stew, macaroni shrimp salad, raisin-filled wreath cookies, her Christmas bread (shaped like a Christmas tree), her cinnamon rolls, and her frosted cookies are remembered and emulated throughout the family. One year she took a cake decorating class and decided to put her new knowledge to work and made frosting for the Christmas cookies. They were blue. The uproar following became a vivid family memory. Last night, at the dinner we gave in her honor, the blue cookies came up again. Later, Gary, Mark and I met over dessert and talked about the fact that it wasn’t just the blue cookies. It was blue glass. Blue carpet. Blue walls. Blue dishes. A blue house. Mark says she’s in blue heaven. I’d have to agree.

She and Dad were passionate about watching birds in the yard and they followed National Wildlife guidelines to establish a bird sanctuary and were recognized for meeting these guidelines. One of our fond memories was mom chasing cats away from the bird baths and feeders. It was said, sometimes, that it was the most exercise that she got.

She loved Boundary County, the mountain view and taking Sunday drives throughout the county.

She was very active in the Methodist Church and was a leader in the United Methodist Women group. She was highly interested in the church’s youth having served as a Sunday school teacher, youth leader, and camp counselor for many years.

She loved to garden. If you had the opportunity to visit their house in its heyday, the flower beds would have been in full bloom and she was always planting something new or buying a new lawn ornament or putting in a new bird feeder. She gleefully gardened Spring and Summer and then spent Fall and Winter planning what she was going to plant again in Spring and Summer. We watched her do this for years and years and packed the garden books out of the house in boxes and boxes to prove it.

She loved crafts. All crafts. She sewed, quilted, needlepointed, painted, oi – let’s stop there. Let’s just say there wasn’t a craft she wouldn’t try once. I learned how to do many of the hobbies I have from her and am grateful she had such enthusiasm. We can attest to that enthusiasm because we packed box after box after box after box of craft stuff out of the house to prove it. We won’t talk about the blue glass or all the pretties that she collected or all the mail-order catalogs which she loved to look through and mark up – but let’s just say there were box after box after box of those, too.

Most of all, she loved Christmas. She used to say that Christmas was a season, not a day, and she proved it by decorating right after Halloween. Of course, it took her that long to go through every box and decorate every room. We remember the Christmas paintings on the large living room window painted for every holiday season. We remember the decorated fireplace mantel, which was her most important Christmas decorating chore – one that was done first every year. She never met a Santa she didn’t buy and pack home. She never met an angel she didn’t ooh and ah over. She never met a nativity she didn’t adore and have to have. She was in awe of every year’s Christmas tree and loved playing Santa. In fact, if she hadn’t tripped over all us kids sleeping on the living floor one year (with the help of a little minion named Aunt Donna), we’d probably all still believe Santa existed. And he did. In my Mom. Again, we can prove her love for Christmas. How? By the box after box after box after box of Christmas decorations that were packed from the house. And they reside at my house now.

She handled most of the child rearing and discipline herself and only occasionally threatened to turn the matter over to dad. She was firm, consistent and loving.

She doted on her grandchildren, having as much fun with their childhoods’ as they did. A trip to grandma’s was a big deal – because every kid knew there’d be crafts and card /game playing and fun to be had at the kitchen table. I believe if we looked, we’d find a picture of every grandchild on the back porch of their house.

I think you’ll all understand when I say that my mother had a hard time after my dad died. He was her anchor and her life, as he was for all of us. But she hung in there and made the changes she needed to make, including selling their precious home, and giving up friends of a lifetime to move to Seattle to be closer to Mark.

Little known fact: Mark was her favorite. And really, I don’t think any of us had any problem with that because any time there was a “mom” problem, we could say: “Mark, go talk to Mom.” You see, my Mom could be cussed stubborn and Mark had a way of being able to get around her – which worked real well for all of us. So when Dad appointed Mark to be the one there to help Mom, we all understood.

Mark, no one could have cared better for our mother than you did. I know it was hard. I know sacrifices had to be made. I know you got a lot of opinions thrown at you about how you were doing it, yet you listened to what our Dad wanted for Mother, you treated mother’s thoughts and feelings with respect, and you followed your heart. I know the commitment it took and sometimes you were pulling your hair out, crying for her and with her, and so were we. We love you for it.

Yes, my mother loved crafts, she loved her gardens, she loved Christmas.

She also loved our dad.

And she loved us kids – Gary, Karen, Mark, Patti and we’re all here.

She loved her grandkids – Jerry, Chris, Owen, Anne, Jamie, John, Emily, and Abby and they are all here except Jerry who is in Iraq.

She loved her great-grand kids – Julia, Aubrey, Zach, Hailey, Catherine, and Carson and as yet unborn baby Aller and they are all here.

We are who we are because of her.

We believe because she believed.

We love because she loved.

And that is the legacy of Nada Evelyn Lannigan Fredericksen. (1923-2010)