Obituary Record

Lila L (Gutschow) Rohwer
Died on 1/30/2003

None

Two newspaper articles

# 1 - - Enterprise 31 Jan. 2003

Lila L. Rohwer, 56

Lila L. Rohwer, 56, of Blair, died Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003, at Memorial Community Hospital in Blair.

Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, at First Lutheran Church in Blair. Interment services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Union Cemetery in rural Cedar Bluffs.

Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. Friday, with the family receiving friends from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Lila L. Rohwer was born Oct. 30, 1946, in Blair to William and Edna (Nicholson) Gutschow. She graduated from Blair High School in 1965, and then attended Capitol Beauty School in Omaha.

She was employed by D. L. Blair from 1970 until 1996, where she was a supervisor, working with client contests.

On July 31, 1976, she married Kenneth A. Rohwer at First Lutheran Church in Blair. He preceded her in death on Jan. 18, 2003.

She is survived by a son, Jon, of Blair; mother, Edna Gutschow of Blair; two sisters and brothers-in-law, Beth and Jim Bolton of Blair, and Vickie and Rick Voss of Lincoln; a brother-in-law and spouse, Keith and Barbara Rohwer of Nebraska City; four nephews, two nieces, and five great-nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her father, William, and a niece, Jacqueline Bolton.

Memorials are suggested to the Parkinson Foundation.

Campbell-Aman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

# 2 - - From Omaha World-Herald, February 1, 2003

BLAIR, NEB., COUPLE DIE 12 DAYS APART by Todd von Kampen, World-Herald Staff Writer

(picture of the couple and caption) Lila Rohwer died of Parkinson’s disease Thursday. Her husband, Kenneth, a Blair High teacher and coach, died Jan. 18.

BLAIR, NEB. - - Kenneth Rohwer was preparing to give up teaching - - his family calling, his 33-year passion - - to give his best to his ailing wife for whatever time they had left together.

But the 54-year-old Blair High School teacher and coach died first, suddenly collapsing Jan. 18 at his home.

A week later, Lila Rohwer entered Memorial Community Hospital in Blair. She died Thursday at age 56 after fighting Parkinson’s disease for a decade.

Lila Rohwer’s funeral will be 11 a.m. today at First Lutheran Church in Blair. She will be buried beside her husband at Union Cemetery near Cedar Bluffs, Neb., where she saw him laid to rest Jan. 22.

“It’s a blessing that she’s been relieved of her pain and suffering,” said Keith Rohwer, Kenneth’s brother and the superintendent of the Nebraska City Public Schools. “They are together.”

Kenneth and Keith Rohwer grew up near Colon, Neb., and went to school in Cedar Bluffs. Their father, Arnold, farmed while their mother, Martha taught in country schools.

Both brothers studied teaching at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, where Kenneth graduated in 1970.

He taught in Blair his entire career, overseeing the school district’s mathematics programs for many years. He coached Blair High’s boys basketball team from 1975 to 1982.

The same year Kenneth started teaching, Lila Gutschow, a cosmetologist, went to work at D.L. Blair Corp. She stayed for 26 years, supervising workers who ran contests for Pepsi-Cola and other businesses.

Lila, a 1965 Blair High graduate, met Kenneth about the time he became basketball coach.

“I remember her telling me, ‘Come to the basketball game, you’ve got to see Ken,’ “ said her sister, Vickie Voss of Lincoln. The couple married in 1976 and had one son, Jon, now 24.

In the early 1990s, Lila developed a form of Parkinson’s that eventually left her unable to walk. Kenneth had become Blair’s boys track coach in 1999, but gave it up after two seasons as his wife’s condition declined.

Keith Rohwer said Kenneth had hired Pam West of Blair to care for Lila during the day. He planned to take early retirement at the end of the school year.

Kenneth collapsed at home about 5:30 p.m Jan. 18 and was taken to the Blair hospital, but couldn’t be revived, his brother said.

Lila developed pneumonia a few days later. But even before Kenneth’s death, “we knew she wasn’t going to live long- - maybe another year,” Voss said.

At Kenneth’s funeral, one woman, an accountant, told Voss how he had helped her with math after school.

A girls basketball player showed her a ribbon with Kenneth’s initials that Blair’s boys and girls teams both wore at their games the night before.

“Kenny was an excellent student himself, so his expectations were high for kids,” Keith Rohwer said. But “he was able to help young people see what to see in a very nurturing way. That’s a gift.”

Lila Rohwer’s other survivors include her mother, Edna Gutschow, and sister Beth Bolton, both of Blair.

Printed in the Washington County Enterprise on 1/31/2003


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