Percies Arleen ENZMANN

ENZMANN, GRONQUIST, JORGENSON, STERNAL, HAUKE, COHEN, KINSEY, KUBLY, EDGE, CRAWFORD, HELDERMAN, EINARSON

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 7/8/2012 at 17:33:33

June 20, 1928 ----- May 29, 2012

Percies "Arleen" Enzmann

Longtime International Falls resident Arleen Enzmann died suddenly and unexpectedly Tuesday, May 29, 2012, in Orlando, Fla. She had been on her way to visit her sisters in Minneapolis and was waiting to board the Delta flight when she had a massive stroke. She passed away at Orlando Regional Hospital.

She is survived by all of her six children, Rebecca Gronquist (John) of St. Bonifacius, Minn., Martha Enzmann (Tom Sternal) of Todd, N. C., Nancylee Jorgenson (James) of Fishers, Ind., Thomas Enzmann (Connie) of Andover, Minn., Emilie Enzmann of Ft. Pierce, Fla., and Otto Enzmann (Angie) of Carmel, Ind. She is also survived by six grandchildren, Kirsten Jorgenson (Nathan Hauke) of Boone, N. C., Sara Cohen (Adam) of Sandy, Utah, Stacy Enzmann of Andover, Minn., Jack Kinsey of Indianapolis, Walt Enzmann of Carmel, Ind., and Maxx Enzmann of Carmel, Ind. She has three sisters who survive her, Lavon Kubly of Roseville, Minn., Elain Edge of Rogers, Minn., and Patsy Crawford of Burlington, Iowa. She had many nieces and nephews living all over the country.

Born June 20, 1928, at the cusp of the Great Depression, she lived her childhood out on a farm in central Iowa, near Humboldt, Iowa. Her mother and father had five children. She remembers wanderers (homeless, hobos and Gypsies) roaming the roads looking for work and food. Her mother was generous, especially to families with children. On the farm, she remembers having enough food but not enough money to buy many necessities. Her mother bartered for shoes for the children who wore dresses made from flour sacks. Despite the Great Depression, Arleen always excelled in school and was accepted to a boarding school in nearby Eagle Grove. She graduated from high school and normal school, which, at the time, meant that she not only had a high school diploma but also a teacher's certificate when she was 16.

She taught for a year in a one-room schoolhouse, while boarding with nearby farming families. During that year she decided that teaching was not her destiny and started the process of applying to Fairview Nursing School in Minneapolis. Without the support of her parents, but with the help of her sisters, she was accepted and entered nursing school where she excelled again in her studies and made lifelong friends. One of her nursing friends was dating an engineering student at the University of Minnesota and she met her future husband at an engineering party at the university. He was the great love of her life and they married in 1949.

Ralph Enzmann, a native of Ray, Minn., who passed away just last October, was her best friend and husband for 61 years. She is likely happy with him together again. Arleen and Ralph began their newlywed life in International Falls in 1950, living in the Riverside Addition. Their house was full of holes in the walls and often had unexpected wild visitors, including a weasel. Arleen and Ralph had three daughters by the time they moved to their new home at Riverview Boulevard. Arleen became a full time mother to six children and met many new friends and neighbors. Her children remember her volunteering at school on shot day! No one liked that duty, but she was happy to help. She led a local 4-H club and attended all of her children's school activities and was active in the local art community, painting and taking art classes. Once her children became more independent she began nursing again at Falls Memorial Hospital. She remembered working many weekends and "helping" the medical residents on duty at the hospital from the Mayo Clinic or from the University of Minnesota. She was an excellent intensive care unit nurse but loved maternal and childbirth duty the most. Perhaps her most famous duty was delivering the "Miracle Baby," Arlene Francis Helderman. Patty Helderman was a cancer patient and went into labor and Arleen Enzmann was the nurse in charge. It was Thanksgiving Day and she was called to fly with and attend the patient during a flight to Duluth for hospitalization as they anticipated the difficulties surrounding the birth of a premature baby from a mother who had cancer.

Arleen had established a rapport with Patty and agreed to leave her own family to help fly the patient to Duluth. It was 25 degrees Fahrenheit below zero that day in International Falls. During the flight it became obvious that the baby was about to be born, so Arleen put the mother in the back of the twin engine Cessna and delivered the baby. It was so cold that she thought that the baby and mom were at risk and put the baby between the mother and herself and laid over them to keep them alive. She began doing mouth-tomouth resuscitation until the plane landed in Duluth and continued until the newborn Arlene Francis Helderman was safely in the neonatal intensive care unit in Duluth. Arlene was named for Arleen Enzmann, the nurse who delivered her in the plane, and for the pilot (Francis Einarson) who flew her to the hospital, which kept her alive. Today, Arlene is director of Social Concerns at Gannon University in Erie, Pa., and a mother to two children.

Arleen was a favorite nurse at Falls Memorial and she enjoyed working with a variety of patients, especially mentioning the returning vets from the Vietnam War and helping many tourists vacationing up north when they had heart attacks and strokes. After retiring from nursing she enjoyed living in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Keewatin, Ontario, Canada while Ralph worked on two large engineering projects there for Boise. She still maintained the house in International Falls and the family lake cabin on Hopkins Bay of Rainy Lake as "home base." She and Ralph and their band of buddies went on fun and adventurous tours and camping trips. During these years the couple decided that they wanted to retire in Florida and chose to live at the Barclay Beach Club on North Hutchinson Island of Ft. Pierce, Fla. Ralph fished, and Arleen took up a lifelong interest in quilting, and they became avid bird watchers and advocates for sea turtle and manatee habitat. As a nurse, she was a self-admitted terrible patient and would not have ever wanted to become a long-term hospital inpatient. Her family will miss her love, strength, humor and light-hearted view of the world. She would remind us all to be kind and caring and to love all the creatures of the earth. She never thought of herself as a brave woman but her actions always told another story. She was in fact one of the most adventurous and talented women you would have had the pleasure to know.

The family is scheduling a memorial open house from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, July 15, at the Debbie and Randy Ciminski home at 1509 Ninth Ave. Friends are welcome to come and share their wonderful memories of her life well lived.

The Journal -- International Falls, Minnesota
June 27, 2012