Phyllis Reimer

Phyllis Reimer, 99, of Freeman, passed away Saturday, September 20th at the Freeman Regional Nursing Home. A Memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 4th at 11 AM at the Salem Mennonite (South) Church of rural Freeman. Burial will be in the church cemetery. 

In Memory of Phyllis Elaine Mueller Reimer

My Life

by Phyllis Mueller

Freeman Academy, English II

Age 15, 1941

“I was born on my parent’s farm on December 18, 1925, near Freeman, South Dakota. It happened to be just a week before Christmas that I arrived, so I made a nice Christmas present for them, Noah and Ida (Preheim) Mueller.

“My parents had both grown up and lived on their family farms before they were married. My father was a graduate of Freeman Jr. College and had attended school in Brookings. My mother also attended Freeman Jr. College.

“When I was about two weeks old, on January 2, 1926, my father was taken to the hospital for an appendix operation, and so on January 3rd I had my first outing when I moved with my mother to my grandmother’s place. I grew my first tooth when I was six months old and took my first steps at eleven and one-half months.

“When I was four, one of my uncles attended school in Wayne, Nebraska, so we went down to visit him, and the next year we went to Brookings where another uncle was attending school.

“When I was five, one day in March a brother arrived at our home, and our parents named him Dale Merlin. From then on, I was no longer the baby of the family.

“I was six when I started country school. I had five different teachers.

“During the spring of my seventh grade, my mother was taken to the hospital. She came back home after about four weeks. During part of this time Esther Nickel came to help us and somehow we managed to cook the meals and keep things in order. The last part of April, Esther left us, and it was up to me to carry on. I learned a lot during that summer.

“School started again, and I went back to country school for the last year. I did not flunk but made my grades successfully and graduated on June 3rd, 1940, in Parker. That summer, I had the privilege of going to Sioux City, Iowa, twice.

“September 1st arrived, and I was to attend Freeman Academy. I had enjoyed one week of school when on Saturday evening I became sick and Sunday evening I was taken to the hospital at Yankton for an appendicitis operation. I stayed in the hospital for nine days. I had good food, could sleep well, and enjoyed listening to the radio. I missed three weeks of school. On April 18, 1941, I and several carloads of other students went to Yankton for a music contest. Along with my Home Economics class, I had the privilege of serving at the Junior-Senior banquet on May 3. We had a picnic at Milltown when school closed.

“During the summer, nothing unusual happened, except that the usual farm work was to be done. In September school started again, and I came back as a sophomore.

“On November 23rd, I was baptized by Rev. Willard Claassen and became a member of the Salem Mennonite Church with nineteen other boys and girls.

“Now I am still attending school and what is yet before me I do not know.”

. . .

Phyllis graduated from Freeman Academy and then from Freeman Jr. College. She worked with her parents on the farm, in the administrative office at Freeman Jr. College as a secretary, and at Camp Friedenswald, the Mennonite camp in Michigan, as the head cook for five summers. She went to Germany after the War with other Mennonite young people to build housing for refugees. She helped her grandfather, John C. Mueller, with correspondence involving the Mennonite Central Committee’s assistance to the Mennonites in Russia.

In the fall of 1955, Phyllis went to Chicago to work as the Dietician for the Mennonite Biblical Seminary. There were several students there from the Freeman area. “We were a happy family,” she remembered. Raymond H. Reimer, a student from Steinbach, Manitoba, was also there. By the end of the first school year, Phyllis and Raymond were dating seriously. Phyllis accepted Raymond’s marriage proposal during the summer of 1956 at Camp Friedenswald, where she had returned to work during the school break. Phyllis and Raymond spent the next year in Chicago making plans to go into the ministry together. Raymond graduated and was ordained as a minister, they were married at the Salem Mennonite Church on June 8, 1957, and after a honeymoon at the Wisconsin Dells, left for Japan by ship on August 11 for the mission field.

Phyllis spent 10 years with Raymond in Japan, perhaps the happiest of her life. They started a church in the coastal city of Nobeoka, on the southern island of Kyushu. Their son Charles was born there in 1962, followed by son Tim’s arrival in 1964 when they were back in the States in between their five-year missionary terms. Phyllis’s parents visited her and her family in Japan in 1967. Phyllis greatly appreciated their support and that of Raymond’s family and his home church, Bergthaler Mennonite, in Steinbach, along with that of the Salem Mennonite Church, and many other relatives and friends. Phyllis saw the sunrise from the summit of Mount Fuji, walked along the beach with her boys collecting seashells, and made many happy memories spending time with church members and friends. She enjoyed learning about and appreciated the Japanese culture. The Lord blessed their work and in 1969 they left Atago Christian Church in the care of a dear friend, Pastor Takarabe, and returned to the States to settle in Freeman. Phyllis and Raymond stayed in contact with the church over the years and enjoyed seeing Pastor Takarabe and his family again when they visited them in Freeman in 1978. Every year she and church members would exchange greetings, especially at Christmas, and they would often send a box of Japanese snacks and candies, much appreciated by her and her boys, and more recently also by her grandsons.

After their return from Japan, Phyllis returned to working at Freeman Jr. College and Academy, first in the bookshop and then as a cook, and planned with Raymond to farm on her homeplace when her parents retired. However, Raymond fell ill with cancer and passed away in December of 1978, only about two years after they had moved to her parent’s farm. Phyllis and the boys spent the following years there with assistance from neighbors, family and friends and her father who re-took on the role he had just been retiring from. In 1995 she moved to her parents’ home in Freeman as Charles was living in Wichita, KS and Tim was living in Sioux Falls. Mom missed Raymond very much and spoke of him often. She searched for solace in the scripture passages that they had read together, in her prayers, and in the beauty of God’s world.

Mom was a devout Christian and a true country girl at heart. She loved nature and living on the farm where she grew up. She cherished the legacy and faith of Christian Mueller, Christian Kaufman, and her other ancestors who first settled the prairie. Mom enjoyed road trips with her family, including many visits to Raymond’s family in Canada. She loved walks in her pasture and out to the stock dams, listening to the howls of the coyotes at night, rock hunting with her rock club friends and with Tim, feeding birds (especially Cardinals) and squirrels, and visits to gardens, wildlife refuges, natural history museums, fossil sites, and parks. Mom would plant flowers by the creek, and in later years, when Tim went out to check the fence lines she would go along and wait for him by the car.

Mom had a deep appreciation for music. She encouraged her sons to play instruments or sing in choirs during their school years, and enjoyed church and community music events as well as the “concerts” that her grandsons would play for her during each visit. Mom also encouraged her sons to travel abroad, as she had done in her youth.

Mom cherished time with her grandsons and also enjoyed the company of her neighbor children who were about the same age. She took many memorable trips with grandsons Steven, Jake and Zach, including to the Black Hills, Canada, McCrory Gardens, the zoo and Japanese gardens in Topeka, and the gardens at Kansas State University. Mom loved making zweibach and chocolate chip cookies for them that they happily devoured. She enjoyed special traditions during visits when her grandsons were younger that included coins for their piggybanks, snack “picnics” in the backyard, reading books together, decorating Christmas cookies, and when they were older, making garden in the spring. She hung ornaments on the Christmas tree with them. She had devotions and prayed with them in the evenings when she was with them and prayed for them every night when she was not.

Mom loved living in her home, and with Tim’s assistance and the kind support of neighbors, relatives, and friends, was able to do so as she grew older. Unfortunately, she suffered an accident there on August 5 and was hospitalized in Freeman. After several days, she transitioned to the Freeman Regional Nursing home for rehabilitative therapy, where she passed away in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 20. She was preceded in death by her husband Raymond; parents Noa and Ida; brother Dale; brothers-in-law Wesley and Edgar Reimer; sisters-in-law Rowena Reimer and Wilma Suderman; Wilma’s husband Harold; and many other relatives and friends.

She is mourned by her son Charles and daughter-in-law Elizabeth (Rogers); son Tim; grandsons Steven, Jacob, and Zachariah Reimer; sisters-in-law Charlotte and Olga Reimer, and Sharon Mueller; nieces and nephews-in-law; and relatives and friends next door, across the street, in the community, across the country, Canada, Japan and Germany.

We as a family wish to express our deepest appreciation and gratitude to everyone for the many deeds of kindness extended to mom during her life, especially in the years after the death of her dear Raymond and in her last years and days. We are also grateful for the expressions of sympathy and acts of kindness since mom passed away and to Reverend Spencer Bradford, Reverend Lois Janzen Preheim, and all those who assisted in the service and luncheon. Your thoughtfulness will long be remembered.

In lieu of flowers mom would have been grateful for donations to further the work of the Mennonite Church Conference of Kyushu, Japan, particularly Atago Christian Church. Donations may be made out to Salem Mennonite Church and sent to Salem Mennonite Church, 28103 443rd Ave, Freeman, SD 57029-5840, and will be furthered to Japan. Please note Atago Christian Church in the memo line.