Irmgard (Bobo) Elfriede Schmidt Lamb

My Mom, Irmgard Elfriede Schmidt Lamb (known to everyone as "Bobo"), passed away on June 27, 2025, at the age of 94.

If you ever met her, you'd know she was incredibly kind, strong-willed, loved conversation, and was always willing to share her opinions. My earliest memories of her involve warm hospitality, when she was chatting and serving seemingly endless servings of coffee, conversation, and cookies to friends, hosting a house full of family members for holidays, or having friends over for unforgettable meals. As I got older, I realized her real talent was not the fabulous food she created and served, but the loving listening and kindness she generously dashed onto every person in the broad mix of humans she considered friends. Once I reached my teens, I was shocked, and not always delighted, to realize that many of my friends would stop by my house even if I wasn't home, and they would stay for the food, the snacks, the conversation. It wasn't until I was older that I realized her inquisitive listening style was not unlike that of talk therapy. What she lacked in education and clinical ability, she made up for with an open door, a kind word and a reminder that there was always a solution to the most difficult problems. Years later, friends and family recounted how her kindness and advice to persevere, and her confident assurances that "I'm sure you'll figure it out, I believe in you," had helped several of them through either a difficult day or a time of significant hardship.

She was raised in war-torn West Germany, and met and married my father, Francis Albert Lamb when she was 20 years old. They remained happily married until his death in 2013. Shortly after they wed, they moved to Mile City, Montana, and a few years after that, to California. She joked about the fact that she married a man who had been a tail gunner in World War II bombing the city where she grew up. She would preach the importance of giving anyone a chance– because you never knew who could become your very dear friend, or who you could fall in love with.

When my Dad died, my Mom came to live with Brooke, Andie, and me, and later Eric, for 9 years. During that time she helped raise my kids, cooked endless meals, ran errands and worked as the after-school chauffeur. She baked items for bake sales and cheerleader functions. She kept hungry teens fed for study groups, Science Olympiad training, and band parties. She was the chaperone who was barely there– just popping in occasionally with endless snacks. In her late 80s, when she cooked less, Eric became her favorite chef. She never lost her fine palate, and she enjoyed directing culinary activity and eating the results almost as much as cooking itself. The kids appreciated her unobtrusiveness as much as the endless treats.

Bobo was both an advocate and a researcher in her own way on her favorite topics of family, food, gardening, and health. She taught my brother and me that libraries were available to research the answer to almost everything that a trustworthy friend couldn't help you figure out. Her house was filled with gardening and cooking magazines and cookbooks, with her favorite recipes and articles highlighted or cut out of the pages. You could see her love in the recipe she thought you would like, set aside for her to make just for you. Although she never spent much time on the internet (as is typical for someone born in 1931), she loved the fact that research is now at our fingertips, although she did caution that it's always important to check your sources.

She loved her family, her friends, cooking and eating food, gardening, libraries, swimming, dogs, and talking at length to anyone and everyone. Each person she met was a potential friend. Each grandchild was pretty sure they were the favorite, and in some unique way, each of them was.

Most people who knew her would first mention her sweetness and then talk about all the great food she cooked and served. They also remember all her key phrases and what are now thought of as "the Bobo-isms". Because of her, I know that "this too shall pass" applies in almost every situation, except the emptiness of losing a loved one.

The joy she brought to our family cannot be stated with mere words. She will be missed dearly by me and my husband Eric Rasmusson; by her son Bill Lamb and his wife Lori Gordon Lamb; by her grandchildren and bonus grandchildren ("don't call them steps!") Robbie Lamb, Briana Lamb Manitta and Tim Manitta, Brooke Carroll and Tom Avontuur, Andie Carroll, Melia (Rasmusson) Bassford and Robert Bassford, Kristen (Rasmusson) Nicodemus and Chipper Nicodemus, Alli Rasmusson, Nick Rasmusson, Emily Rebeck, Scott Rebeck, Jason Rebeck; and the great grandchildren Nora Lamb and Eli Manitta, Ellie Lamb, Izzy, Phoenix and Aidan Carney, Charlee and Sonny Nicodemus, and Ashley Rebeck.