Louise Alberta Wilhelm

Louise Alberta Wilhelm (nee Adler) 

 

July 02, 1928 – December 23, 2022 (94)

 

   On the afternoon of Friday, December 23, 2022, while in Hospice care, Louise A. Wilhelm peacefully slipped away from her physical body, moving on to be with friends, family, and loved ones who passed before her.  Her daughter, Leah Smith, was with her at her time of transition.

 

   Louise was born on July 02, 1928, in an old brick farmhouse on Gifford Road, in Henrietta Township, Lorain County, OH.  Her father, Conrad Adler, was a skilled carpenter, farmer, and blacksmith.  Louise often shared fond memories of neighbors’ horses being shod in their barn, along with recalling sitting on her father’s lap as he cultivated their fields with a horse-drawn plow.

 

   Four (4) years after Louise’s birth, her mother (Mary Valentine Adler, nee Snyder) suffered a stroke that left her partly paralyzed.  After the stroke, farm life proved too difficult, so they sold the farm to Louise’s oldest sister and her husband (Mary and Howard Born) and they moved into a home on Franklin Ave. in Amherst, OH – Louise was ten (10) years old.  After moving to Amherst, Louise met and fell in love with William “Bill” Wilhelm.  Two years after she graduated as the co-Salutatorian of her high school class, Louise married her high school sweetheart.  She also established close and lifelong friendships with other of her Amherst classmates, regularly gathering with these gal friends once per month, for decades after their high school years were long past.

 

   In addition to gathering with her friends and doting on her children and grandchildren, Louise enjoyed cooking, baking, and handcrafts such as crocheting, needlepoint, and painting.  She also enjoyed writing, maintaining a private journal of poems she’d composed since childhood.

 

   Louise was preceded in death by her parents and siblings, her adopted daughter Patti Ann (nee Wilhelm) Burns (Joe), and her beloved husband and lifelong partner, William Wilhelm. She is survived by her children Timothy J. (Susan), Thomas J. (MaryBeth), Leah L. (Kurt Smith), and Jenny A. (Newton Morgan), as well as thirteen (13) grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren.

 

   A private, family memorial service was held on Sunday, January 15, 2023.  Cremation rites were afforded.  On January 25, 2023, in the presence of Joe, Emily, and Lilly Burns, Pam Nielsen, and Eric Hempel, Louise’s remains were quietly interred in the Birmingham Cemetery, next to those of her husband, Bill.