Gerke, Raymond Lee 1950-2012

GERKE, WHEELER, CUMMINS, PALMER, STRAUSS, SHEHORN

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 7/13/2021 at 21:35:29

Obituary for Raymond Gerke
Raymond Lee Gerke
BORN
January 21, 1950
Marshalltown, Iowa
DIED
June 15, 2012
Des Moines, Iowa
AGE
62 Years, 4 Months, 25 Days
SERVICE
My name is Raymond (Ray) Gerke. I live in Perry, Iowa.
Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today. I am honored to be here to share my story with you in order to help you understand the importance of supporting home and community based services.
I received a diagnosis of cerebral palsy when I was an infant. At that time, my parents were given the choice - take me home and raise me like any other child, or place me in an institution. They chose to take me home.
My early years were filled with family vacations, road trips with my Dad in his truck, and games, rivalry and love between me and my siblings and cousins. When I was eight, my parents were told that I needed more intense therapy services than what I could get in my home community. They were told the best thing they could do for me would be to place me in a facility where I could get physical, occupational and speech therapy.
So, all of a sudden, I found myself in a town two hours from my home - alone without understanding why. I was totally unprepared for this strange setting. Instead of my family and friends, I found myself sharing my life with 97 other individuals with disabilities. Some of those strangers became my friends, but no one could replace what I left at home.
Because I did not understand, I cried for those first two days, and then many days off and on for the two years I lived there full-time. After those first two years, I returned to my home during the school year, and spent summers back in the facility.
It took three years to learn the system - to know what to expect and be able to handle things without those childhood tears. For example, I learned independence. We were not allowed visitors as they might upset us. I learned not to trust people. In a congregate setting, the young kids gets teased and bullied by the more experienced. Kids take things from each other, and worse, if adults see something they like, those things also often come up missing.
In that same setting, my experience included having to go along with demands of an authority figure who had power to make my life miserable - even when that authority figure's demands included misusing my body to meet his personal desires.
I got all the intense therapy I needed - but at what cost?
When the professionals decided that the therapy had gone as far as it could, I returned to my family home. That experience - though over four decades ago - has had lasting impact on my life and my perspectives.
Today I live with my wife, who also has Cerebral Palsy, in a home we own. I work full-time. I drive myself to work and wherever else I need to go. I have many, many friends,
some who have a disability, some who do not. I live a full life - a life that I direct myself with supports.
I also carry with me each and every day the burden of knowing that the threat of institutionalization is as real for me today as it ever has been. If I lost the funding sources that provide me the ability to maintain my life as it is, my salary could not cover the costs of having staff to assist me with getting ready for work, preparing my meals, or getting me into bed at night.
Without that support, I'd have few options but to return to a setting much like the facility I knew those early years. I would then no longer be directing a few select personal assistants to assist me with the choices I make on how I like to live, and I would also no longer have the independence I know today. My life would lack privacy. When I lose choice, independence and privacy, I also lose my dignity and I lose my freedom.
In order for me to maintain my life in the community, and to provide other people of all ages who live with disabilities today the same opportunity, I ask you to:
� Eliminate the institutional bias in Medicaid by requiring states to include community based personal assistance services in their Medicaid plans. Individuals who qualify for Medicaid should automatically be eligible for community services�not just services delivered in institutional settings as in current law.
� Provide financial incentives for states to help individuals transition from institutions to community settings. Because community settings are typically less costly, this benefits not only the individual but also the federal and state treasuries.
� Assist states in developing and implementing a strategy to "re-balance" their long term care systems so that there are more cost-effective choices between institutional and community options.
� Provide financial support and create incentives for states to develop quality community-based supports and services, including support to help states find ways to recruit, train, and retain direct support workers.
� Offer respect to the people whose lives are affected by disability policy decisions by not just listening to them, but by having them be a part of the decision-making itself.
Today, I am an active advocate for all people with disabilities. I serve on many boards and committees, two of which strongly apply to this topic:
� I am a member of Iowa's Olmstead Real Choice Consumer Task Force. We are working to effectively implement the Olmstead decision in Iowa. This includes advocating for the policies I just stated as well as working with the Iowa Department of Human Services to take advantage of CMS's new progressive policy of self-direction, which promotes community living and affords individuals more choice and control over the services they r
10:00 a.m. Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Hastings Funeral Home
Perry, Iowa
WORDS OF COMFORT
Rev. Patrick Dittert
Lighthouse Independent Ministries
HONORARY BEARERS
Kyle Gerke Joshua Gerke
Jeremy Osbourne Michael Osbourne
Sonny Palmer
CASKET BEARERS
Matt Gerke Brandon Gerke
Jordan Gerke Chris

Raymond Lee Gerke son of Ernest W. Gerke and Barbara Hickman was born January 21, 1950 in Marshalltown, Iowa and died June 15, 2012 in Des Moines at the age of 62. Ray and his family lived in Marshalltown until he was three years old and then they moved to Des Moines. He attended East High School in Des Moines and graduated in 1970. Ray and Patricia Wheeler were united in marriage on April 5, 1975 at the Baptist Church in Newton. They made their home in Newton for two years and then in Perry. Ray worked at the Woodward Resource Center for 30 Years and retired in 2007. He enjoyed watching TV, and was a NASCAR and Iowa State Fan. Ray's passion was to be involved with numerous state and national endeavors for people with disabilities. He liked to travel and was a member of the Moose Lodge. He was a legal aid advisor, Olmsted honor chair, and DD council government task force. He was President and Co-founder of NsCon (National Coalition for Self Determination). He gave a testimonial for the United States Congress before a 21 Senator panel. Senator Tom Harkin was behind Money Follows the Person. Ray was a TASH self-advocate. Ray strongly felt that a person with a disability should be able to make their own choice of where they would live and who they would have help them reach their goals. Money Follows the Person would be a vehicle for this goal by allowing the disabled individual to live at home and not have to go to a nursing home or institution by using the money to live and stay where they want to. Ray was very independent and determined to make a difference for others with disabilities and for himself and his wife Pat.

Ray is preceded in death by his grandparents, a brother-in-law, Donnie Wheeler, a niece Danette Wheeler, a grandnephew Daniel Jacob Gerke, and a grandniece Candace Angel Cummins. Ray is survived by his wife Pat, his parents Barbara and Ernest Gerke of Des Moines; and siblings: Pamela Gerke of Des Moines, Paula (Jerry) Palmer of Des Moines; Randy (Cindy) Gerke of Melcher, Iowa; Ronald (Emily) Gerke of Des Moines; and Phyllis (Jeff) Strauss of Plano, TX. He is also survived by an aunt, Gretchen Shehorn of Lincoln, NE; an uncle, Richard (Virginia) Gerke of Princeton, MO; several nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews. Memorials may be directed to the family and may be left at the funeral home.
Raymond Lee Gerke
BORN
January 21, 1950
Marshalltown, Iowa
DIED
June 15, 2012
Des Moines, Iowa
AGE
62 Years, 4 Months, 25 Days
SERVICE
10:00 a.m. Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Hastings Funeral Home
Perry, Iowa
WORDS OF COMFORT
Rev. Patrick Dittert
Lighthouse Independent Ministries
HONORARY BEARERS
Kyle Gerke Joshua Gerke
Jeremy Osbourne Michael Osbourne
Sonny Palmer
CASKET BEARERS
Matt Gerke Brandon Gerke
Jordan Gerke Chris Palmer
Loren Mitchell Donny Riggenberg
Phil Wells William Clark
PIANIST
Virginia White
SOLOIST
Robert Dittert
HYMNS
I Did It My Way
Amazing Grace
The Lord's Prayer
INTERMENT
Resthaven Cemetery & Mausoleum
801 19th Street
West Des Moines, Iowa. ~ The
Hastings Funeral Home, Des Moines, Iowa 15 June 2012.