Michael Elbert

Mike was my favorite cousin, just as his father was my favorite uncle. Uncle John and my dad, Willis were brothers who grew up in Whittemore, Iowa, where their father tragically died at a young age. For the first five years of our lives, our parents shared a duplex on Duff Avenue in Ames, Iowa. Mike was the middle kid in his family with an older sister, Susan, and younger brother, Jim. I was the middle boy in my family of four children. All seven of us Elberts were born in Ames between 1945 and 1949. Our family baby boom included two girls and five boys. Mike´s sister Susan arrived first in early 1945; my brother Steve was next in late 1945; then came Mike in 1946, me in 1947, my sister Cathy in 1948 and Mike´s brother Jim and my brother Jack, both in 1949. My family lived downstairs in the duplex, which was owned by our Aunt Gussie, and Mike´s family lived upstairs but we kids were everywhere. I remember Mike as fun-loving and out-going, like his father. Family albums have lots of pictures of us riding tricycles and playing in the yard and on our big front porch. Years later, after our families had moved into separate single-family homes, Aunt Gussie hired Mike and me one summer to paint it, which we did. It wasn´t a good paint job but she paid us anyway. By then, Mike had inherited his dad´s sense of humor and spent more time cracking jokes and telling stories then he did painting. It was a fun summer and the last time I spent much time with Mike, because once we graduated from Ames High School, we went our separate ways. Years later, I learned that Mike, in addition to being funny was smart and despite getting poor grades in school he could study when he wanted to. Mike didn´t go right into college from high school. But after he´d bounced around some, he married Surreta and settled down. That´s when he got serious and not only got a college degree but went on and got an MBA. In recent years, Mike and I emailed a lot and talked fairly often on the phone. During those conversations we discovered we still had a lot in common and had a lot of laughs. I´ll miss him a lot.
Dave Elbert

May your memories of the wonderful times you shared with your loved one comfort you and your family, today and always.