Sunday Obituary - Caroline Susan (Keppers) Theisen

Caroline Susan (Keppers) Theisen, May 1956

This week's subject is Caroline Susan Keppers, wife of last week's subject, Peter Adam Theisen.  Caroline was my wife's paternal grandmother.  She died right around the time I first met my wife, and shortly before the death of my paternal grandfather in November 1982. 

Theisen
SAUK RAPIDS— Mrs Peter (Caroline S) Theisen, 85, Route 1 and formerly of St. Cloud, died Tuesday at the Monticello-Big Lake Hospital, Monticello.

Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Holy Cross Catholic Church, Pearl Lake, with the Rev. Roger Vaughn officiating.  Burial will be in the parish cemetery.

Friends may call after 3 p.m. Thursday at the Daniel Funeral Home in St. Cloud.  Holy Cross parish prayers will be 8 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home, followed by Holy Cross Christian Mothers at 8:30 and Annunciation Christian Mothers of Mayhew Lake at 9.

Mrs Theisen was born Jan 10. 1897, in Avon, to the late Joseph and Mary (Kraemer) Keppers.  She married Peter A. Theisen on Feb 13,1917, in Rockville and farmed in the Pearl Lake area most of her married life.  She moved to St. Cloud in 1958, where she was a resident until 1974 when
she moved to the home of her daughter in Sauk Rapids. She was a member of Holy Cross Christian Mothers of Pearl Lake, St. Theresa's Catholic Aide of Luxemburg, Annunciation Christian Mothers and Annunciation Parish of Mayhew Lake.

Survivors include children, Mrs. Gerhard (Viola) Leither, Jacobs Prairie, Francis, Mrs. Leander (Lucille) Gross, Mrs. Clodoald (Eileen) Blonigen, Mrs James (Bernice) Brunette and Marvin, St. Cloud; Marcellus and Mrs. Francis (Betty) Zwilling, Sauk Rapids, Mrs. Mathias (Rosemary) Koltes, Kimball, James, Pearl Lake, and Vernon, Elk River; 65 grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren; brothers and sisters, Jerome, Wadena, Edward, Green Bay, Wis., Justin, Lincoln, Mrs. Joseph (Cecilia) Nolen, Roscoe, and Mrs. Lawrence (Loretta) Thielman, Cold Spring.

She was preceded in death by her husband on Dec. 23, 1971, three children, four grandchildren, and one sister.

Pallbearers will be grandsons.

This is another pretty good obituary, with a brief biographical section and names and location of children and spouses.  Also, it gives full names for her parents including mother's maiden name.  Like most obits, this one doesn't give a date of death, but rather a day.  This requires that you know the date of publication to calculate back to the actual date of death.  Other sources have provided this information: 14 Sep 1982.


I've mentioned in other posts about my in-laws not being very interested in family history before I started asking.  The Keppers family is actually pretty well documented for several generations back, a fact I discovered once I started investigating the family on the Internet.  Even so, this obituary provided some data that I had not found elsewhere.  Any source can have important data!  

Sunday’s Obituary – if you have obituaries of family members and ancestors, consider posting them along with other information about that person as part of Sunday’s Obituary. This is an ongoing series developed by Leslie Ann at Ancestors Live Here.