Beverly Ann (Balmer) Rigler (2021)

BALMER, BAUMANN, DAUGHERTY, HOUK, JENNINGS, JOHNSON, LILLEY, MILLER, RIGLER, THOMAS, WALDRON, WILLIAMS

Posted By: Shirley Keating
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:04:38

Overton Funeral Home
Indianola, Iowa

Beverly Ann Balmer Rigler

Beverly Ann Balmer Rigler died on August 16th, 2021 in Olathe, KS. She was 90 years old.

Beverly Ann Balmer was born to Gretchen L. (Lilley) Balmer and Virgil Raymond Balmer on April 22, 1931 in Malad City, ID. When Gretchen died on May 22, 1931, Beverly was taken to Iowa and given into the care of her maternal grandmother Arie Lilley in the town of Peru, home of the original Delicious Apple. Although her father subsequently remarried and had four more children, Beverly remained in Peru and attended school there through her sophomore year of high school. She completed high school in the seat of Madison County, Winterset, where there were opportunities for her to participate in vocal music and drama.

With the aid of a National Methodist Scholarship and a campus work assignment, Beverly was able to enroll at Simpson College in Indianola, IA. There she was the first freshman in the history of the school to win a creative writing award. Her work assignment job was washing dishes in the kitchen of the college dining hall. In that work crew she met her future husband, A Kellam (“Rig”) Rigler. They were married on June 15, 1952 in the Simpson College Chapel. Their honeymoon was their road trip west to Santa Monica, CA, where Kellam had accepted a job with Douglas Aircraft. Beverly completed the coursework for a Bachelor of Education degree at Los Angeles State College. Over the years, Beverly and Kellam lived in the Los Angeles area, Albuquerque, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rolla, MO, and Columbia, MO. Son Joseph Wayne was born in Connecticut in 1958, and daughters Ann Marie, Carol Elaine, and Sally Kathleen were born in Pittsburgh in 1960, 1961, and 1962, respectively.

Beverly loved teaching. After the family moved to Missouri, Beverly completed a Master of Arts degree at Lincoln University and was certified to be an elementary school teacher, a psychological examiner/counselor, and a teacher of special needs children (remedial and learning disabled). She worked as a counselor and psychological examiner in three of the Rolla schools before accepting a position as a Learning Disabilities teacher in the Newburg school system, a job she held until retiring in 1991. When Kellam retired from the University of Missouri–Rolla faculty, he and Beverly moved to Columbia, MO. After Kellam died in 2008, Beverly remained in Columbia until 2015, when she moved to Cedar Lake Village in Olathe, KS.

Beverly was preceded in death by her husband Kellam, her grandmother, mother, father, step-mother Martha Thomas Balmer Baumann, brother Virgil “Larry” Balmer, sisters Janice Johnson and Cynthia Jennings. She is survived by her son Joseph and daughter-in-law Jill Rigler, daughter Dr. Ann Marie Rigler and son-in-law Eric Williams, daughter Carol Rigler, daughter Dr. Sally Rigler, granddaughter Erin Daugherty Waldron and grandson-in-law Jay Waldron, granddaughter Emma Daugherty Miller and grandson-in-law Conor Miller, and great-granddaughter Madelyn Waldron; her brother L. Thomas Balmer and sister-in-law JeAnne Balmer, and sister-in-law H. Carolyn Rigler Houk.

Memorial donations may be made to Simpson College, Cedar Lake Village, Assistance League of Mid-Missouri, or Meals on Wheels.