Mrs. Gerritt VanNimwegen
LeMars Globe-Post
April 24, 1948
Comes now a tribute to an old friend. This column lost a booster, and Northwest Iowa a fine woman, when the grim reaper gave the nod to Mrs. Gerritt Van Nimwegen, late of Rock Valley.
As Cecile Roeder, Mrs. Van Nimwegen, was a LeMars girl and possessed of much charm. And in her lifetime she took delight in her many little kindnesses—sincere acts of goodness toward folks within her reach.
As an early reader of my column, Cecile wrote encouraging letters to a struggling author. Not that she pretended to be an authority in such matters, because it wasn’t that way at all. Rather, it was because she seemingly took pleasure in reading my stuff, and was kind enough and thoughtful enough to write and tell me so. And in rugged days of wartime food shortages, a time when formerly commonplace items were in short supply in my home, Cecile remembered me and mine with gift parcels a surprisingly large number of times.
In her last sickness, a long and hopeless period, Cecile wrote some of the bravest letters it has ever been my privilege to read. Although she knew the score, she never dwelt upon it in her letters to me. The nearest she ever came to it was in her last note to me just a week before the end.
Writing in the small hours of the morning, while suffering through delay in arrival of the only relief medical science had to offer, she penned in closing: “Can’t sleep, Pretty rough going. ~Cecile.”
Rest in peace, dear friend!
-o.p.-
