Rosholt, Madge Lucille (Stansberry) 1933 - 2019

ROSHOLT, STANDBERRY, MESSENGER

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/19/2024 at 21:00:48

Madge Lucille Stansberry Rosholt of Decorah, Iowa, died unexpectedly of natural causes on September 22nd, 2019, at the age of 86. Known to most as Lucy, Lucille, or Mrs. Rosholt, to the writers of this obituary, her three sons Mark, Tom, and Bill, she is Mom. Our dad, Bob Rosholt, currently resides and receives memory care at the Aase Haugen nursing home in Decorah, Iowa. While he struggles to clearly draw on his 62-plus years of loving history with Mom as we collect the highlights of her story, what he is able to state about her both frequently and unabashedly is, “I just love her so much.” Included on the list of things he loves about her is “Everything!”

Mom was born in Orange, New Jersey, on January 12, 1933, the second child of Miriam (Messenger) and Floyd Stansberry. She claims to have been a bit rough and tumble as a child, with little interest in the things her mother ascribed to being a lady and greater interest in competing with her brother, Bob, six years her senior. We are grateful she didn’t let the social conventions of the day prevent her from becoming, among other things, an accomplished ping pong player and our most formidable early opponent in the countless hours we spent playing in the “rec room.”

However, it was not a sport that became both Mom’s vocation and avocation, but rather music. Her parents were musicians themselves; her mother was a classically-trained pianist and her father played the violin. Early in Mom’s development as a pianist, she discovered a gift for playing by ear. Her parents took steps to ensure this natural gift was bolstered with formal training. In these early years she was also able to develop her performing chops, as she was frequently called upon to entertain guests in their home.

The talent, training, and experiences afforded to her growing up just outside New York City led her to enter the University of Michigan in 1950, at age 17, to study voice, piano, and music education. She ultimately earned a Master’s Degree in 1955 before being personally recruited by Weston Noble to teach at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, that Fall. Heeding that call would determine much of the remaining course of her life. In the fall of 1956, after Mom had been at Luther “on her own” for a year, a young man from Cyrus, Minnesota, joined the faculty, and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. A relatively short courtship and a Valentine’s Day proposal preceded the marriage of Lucy and Bob in July 1957.

Mom and Dad spent their first year of marriage in Decorah before departing in September 1958 to live and study in London for a year, traveling around the European continent when possible. Upon returning to the States, they settled in St. Paul, MN, so Dad could finish his graduate coursework. The ‘60s proved to be a decade just as dynamic and well-traveled for Mom as the ‘50s, but in an entirely different way. Mark was born in Minneapolis, MN, in 1960, Tom in Washington, DC, in 1963, and Bill in Wooster, OH, in 1968, with each of those stops coinciding with a career move for Dad. Their final stop that decade was Bloomsburg, PA, in 1969, a place they would happily call home for the next 31 years.

We don’t think either Mom or Dad would have considered themselves to be well-traveled prior to that year they spent in London, but the experience led to a lifetime love of travel that is a significant part of what they imparted to us and our own children. With Dad, Mom ultimately visited all 50 United States as well as 20-plus European countries. Mom recognized that travel was essential to expanding one’s viewpoint, connecting with those different from ourselves, and allowed one to experience works of great human effort and scenes of immeasurable natural beauty. A year in London for the five of us in ‘76-’77, which included multiple trips to the European continent during school breaks, proved to be of singular importance in binding us together as a family, with Mom as the glue. We still regularly talk about that trip 42 years later!

There are many other things that made Mom who she is. First and foremost for the three of us, she was an extraordinarily generous and involved mother. In addition to giving us life, she changed thousands of diapers, prepared tens of thousands of meals, vacuumed volumes of dirt we and our friends tracked into the house, processed tons of laundry, helped acquire and provide for our various pets, was our Cub Scout den mother, church choir rehearsal accompanist, personal triage nurse, chauffeur, household gardener, foreign language interpreter, haircutter, sounding board, disciplinarian, driving instructor, musical inspiration, and role model. Simply put, she was “there.” All of these efforts, both large and small, wove a tapestry of love and stability that allowed us to thrive as kids and causes us to feel profoundly grateful as adults.

Although being a wife and mother was Mom’s primary focus for the three decades spanning Mark’s birth in 1960 to Bill’s college graduation in 1990, she clearly displayed to us that she was much more than that, doing what was needed to maintain her musical, artistic, and social interests. She sang in Lutheran church choirs for decades, directed a Presbyterian church choir for a time, was an adjunct college music instructor for a year, gave hundreds of private piano and voice lessons, put on an individual voice recital in her 40s, was involved in musical theatre both on-stage as the star and behind the keyboard as the accompanist, attended local live theatre productions, hosted and attended dinner parties, and spent time with her friends she affectionately referred to as “my loony ladies.”

Mom was a firm believer in the power of the mind and the need to exercise it. Almost every day of the last two decades Mom brought Dad to the kitchen table to work on that day’s New York Times crossword puzzle. They were masters of most linguistic, geographical, musical, artistic, and historical topics, and learned some things about current popular culture along the way. Mom’s innate curiosity manifested itself in a remarkable ability to recall specific details about a wide array of things, most notably people. She retained a treasure trove of personal data about not only her loved ones, but nearly anyone with whom she made an acquaintance, endearing herself to others in the process.

Mom’s curiosity extended to the natural world as well. As long as we can remember, she always wanted beautiful and interesting plants growing around her home. She loved digging in the dirt and was constantly experimenting with various locations and combinations of plants and shrubs. She also loved seeing wildlife in her yard, despite being occasionally dismayed at their dining habits when they resulted in a patchy lawn or the premature demise of a favorite growing thing!

Fortunately for her and for us, Mom’s last home seems to be the one that fit her best. She and Dad moved back to Decorah in 2000, rekindling friendships forged in the 50s and refreshed in the 80s when the three of us attended Luther College. She immediately reconnected with Luther, in particular with all things musical, and also became deeply involved with First Lutheran Church and a number of other Decorah-area organizations. Not only did her pre-existing friendships prove to be very fulfilling, so did countless new ones. We cannot fully express our gratitude to the people of Decorah who have had a hand in making Mom and Dad’s golden years so enjoyable and satisfying, and who continue to support us at this time.

No story of Mom would be complete without mentioning her love of and willingness to give in to laughter. She had a highly developed sense of humor and was particularly fond of teasing and being teased, always good-naturedly, most often concluding with a hug. The number of laughing fits we either directly shared with her or simply heard about are far too many to count. Laughter overtaking Mom will certainly be among the sounds we will miss most.

Of course, Mom is far more than her talent, timeline, or traits. Family was paramount to Mom, and she was a fiercely devoted wife, mother, mother-in-law to Kathy Bolstorff, Kristin Rosholt, and Ann Baltes, grandmother, aunt, great aunt, daughter, and sister, taking on all these rolls without reserve. It is her love of family that was her hallmark and will be her greatest legacy. She was particularly proud of her five grandchildren, Charlie (24), Evan (21), Jonah (16), Grace (15), and Allison (14), certainly for their accomplishments but far more importantly for how they see the world and hope to make it a better, kinder place.

Mom was not only a humanitarian, but also had great compassion for animals. She would be honored by any memorial gift of time or money directed to any favorite charity which exists to improve the lives of people or animals. If you have an interest in a memorial gift that is specific to her, you can bolster her mission of supporting college students who are growing in a passion of hers, collaborative piano, by making a contribution to The Lucille Stansberry Rosholt Distinction in Accompanying and Collaborative Keyboard Performance Award administered by Luther College. Designate the name of the award or simply Lucille Rosholt when using any of the channels Luther College provides for making donations.

A celebration of Lucy’s life, and the light and kindness she brought to this world, will take place in Decorah, Iowa, on Saturday, November 23, 2019, at 1:00 PM, in the main hall of the Center for Faith and Life on the Luther College campus. We invite you to join us for this celebration that will be filled with music we know she would love.

Source: Fjelstul Funeral Home database

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