Lucile K. Eisiminger

A pioneer died March 25, 2017, just as she had lived, surrounded by family, in her own home, on her own terms. She was almost 98 years old. Services will be held Monday, April 3, 2:00 p.m. at her church, Grace ,, followed by a reception and then internment at Fairview Cemetery. Visitation is , Apri 2, afternoon from 4-8 p.m. at Swan-Law (501 Tejon).

Lucile Mathilda Anna Kusener was born on her father’s birthday on May 18, 1919, at her parents’ ranch in Russell County Kansas. The fifth child of second-generation German Lutheran immigrants, Lucile was surrounded by her extended family of prairie homesteaders from the moment her grandmother Klusener, a renowned midwife, brought her into this world. Her mother, Elizabeth Luerman and father, William Klusener, were childhood sweethearts, growing up together in this tight knit frontier community. Elizabeth and William married at the prairie church their parents had helped build and had six children before Elizabeth’s sudden death in 1925: Henry (1907) who contracted polio at age two, Rose Grissom (1910), Lillian Spreier (1913), Alfred (1915), Warren (1921) and Lucile (1919).

When her mother died, Lucile’s father could not handle his grief and abandoned the children. 15-year-old Rose kept Lucile and Warren for two hard years while she worked as a hired girl before she had to send them to her mother’s family in the “North Country.” Lucile and her siblings were scattered among relatives during the dark days of the depression and WWII. Nine-year-old Lucile lived first with her Aunt Lena, attending the same one-room prairie school her mother had attended, and then with her maternal grandparents, Minnie Schmitt and Hermann Luerman, on their original homestead. However when the Klusener kids grew up, they spent every minute they could together, often at Lucile’s home in Hutchinson, KS.

Once she graduated 8th grade, all she was allowed to do in the 1930’s, she worked as a hired girl. Then she met the love of her life, Myrl K. Eisiminger, of the family farm in Partridge, KS, at a dance when she was 16. Although Myrl was so spellbound at first sight that he told his friend, “That’s the girl I am going to marry,” Lucille wouldn’t dance with the older, dashing bachelor—at least at first. They would waltz together for over 60 years of marriage, however, and took turns as president of a senior dance club in Colorado Springs. Married on May Day, 1937, they were partners in farming, gas stations, house flipping and more. Though Lucile called herself a housewife, she was also an artist, poet, amazing fisherman, first-class chef, church woman, nature-lover, and often, comedian.

Three daughters were born to Lucile and Myrl in Kansas before they moved to Colorado Springs in 1962 : Elizabeth Mae Atkinson (1939) and Darlene Marie Jessup (1946)—both deceased, and Rhogene Rose (1957) of the family home. Grandchildren are Rebecca Atkinson of Hasty, CO; Jay Atkinson of Chino, CA, Thomas Atkinson of Colorado Springs, Michelle Jessup Osbourne of Wiley, CO, and Daniel Jessup of San Jose CA. Great Grandchildren are Jeanne Elizabeth Schmelzer (Holly, CO), Paul Luke Schmelzer (Hasty, CO), Hannah Osborne (Lamar, C0), Cassidy Osborne (Wiley, CO), Sarah Atkinson Welch (La Junta, CO), Casandra Atkinson Bastian (Pueblo), Jason Mann (Rocky Ford, CO), and Fayvon Liu (Chino, CA). Great, great grandchildren are technically Ezekiel, Makayla, Shawn, and Rachael, but Lucile was “Grandma” to almost everyone she knew.