Genevieve GEHLING

GEHLING, REINART, MULRONEY, BUCCHOLZ, THIELEN, BACHOROSKI, CLARK

Posted By: Judy Dankert Parsons (not related) (email)
Date: 2/24/2005 at 13:42:19

The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colorado, February 2005. Genevieve Mary Reinart Gehling, 85, a resident of Colorado since 1982, passed away on Wednesday, February 16, at Cedarwood Health Care Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Genevieve was born February 19, 1920, to peter and Mary Reinart on their farm four and a half miles southwest of Halbur, Iowa. She attended St. Augustine's Catholic School in Halbur. On October 28, 1937, she was married to Lawrence Gehling from the nearby town of Carroll, Iowa. For the first ten years of their married life the newlyweds rented a series of farms in Carroll, Humboldt, and Pocahontas Counties. Along the way, Genevieve gave birth to four sons and three daughters.

In 1946, Genevieve and her husband quit farming and moved their family to town. They spent most of their remaining years together in Gilmore City, Iowa, where Genevieve worked first as a caregiver for several local families and then as an aide in a nearby retirement center. During the late 1970's Genevieve also found time to pursue her interests in family genealogy. She not only wrote down her own personal memoirs, but also researched the many branches of the Herman Gehling line of descendants.

After the death of her husband in 1982, Genevieve moved to Colorado Springs to be nearer to the families of her children. She soon busied herself in organzing family outings, learning china and landscape painting, piecing togehter quilts and embroidering pillowcases. Genevieve spent the last four years of her life at the Cedarwood Health Care Center in Colorado Springs where she continued to work on her pillowcases and greeting cards until the very end. Everyone who knew her will always remember her shy, but warm, smile and the unfailing positive attitude that was her trademark. She leaves behind the enduring image of a gentle, loving woman who enjoyed nothing so much as the company of her family and friends.

Genevieve was preceded in death by her husband, Lawrence Gehling; daughter, Lois Mulroney, and her two sons: Donald Gehling and Thomas Gehling. She is survived by two sisters: Mary Buccholz, of Jasper, Indiana and Bertille Thielen of Manning, Iowa; by two daughters: Connie Bachoroski of Colorado Springs and Bonnie Clark of Rolfe, Iowa; by two sons: Richard Gehling and Charles Gehling, both of Colorado Springs; by 15 grandchildren; 40 great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren.

Memorial services will be 2:00 p.m., Saturday, February 19, 2005 at the Blunt Mortuary Chapel, 2229 W. Colorado Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80904 with Pastor Donald Leigh officiating.