Ethel Wernecke Pauba

Ethel was born at home on Mother’s Day, May 12, 1929, near the farming town of Timothy (now Newton), Wisconsin, the seventh of ten children born to Calvin Carl Wernecke and Leona Hetzel Wernecke.

After graduating from high school, Ethel was employed as a clerical worker at the Kohler Company near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It was there that she met Roger Pauba, the teletype repairman from Minnesota who was to become her husband. They married on August 31, 1952, in Newton and honeymooned in the Wisconsin Dells. Afterward they moved to Duluth, MN, and later to Grand Rapids, MN, where they lived for about nine years. Roger’s job with Northwestern Bell Telephone Company caused them to move back to Duluth in 1964 and, a year later, to Omaha, where they lived for nearly twenty-five years. They became members of the Presbyterian Church of the Cross in 1966. In early 1989 they moved into an earth-bermed home that they’d designed together and that Roger built almost entirely by hand on their rural property outside Fort Calhoun.

Many of Ethel’s adult years were spent as a full-time mother, a calling at which she excelled. When her kids were a bit older, she worked as a unit secretary in Bergan Mercy Hospital’s labor and delivery ward. Her retirement was spent baking, sewing, gardening, and traveling to visit family. She loved irises and roses, creamed spinach with buttered noodles, beautiful sunrises, hosting the little ones for sleepovers, and Christmas trees hung with angels. Ethel was a kind, caring person, and her love for her family—those who went before her and those she’s leaving behind—was clear even to the end. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her.

She is survived by her husband, Roger; her younger sister, Jean Schultz of DePere WI; children Karen Witzke of Iowa City IA, Greg (Julie) of Omaha, Jane (Gary) Dodge of Des Moines IA, Judy (Nate) Feldman of Omaha, Kevin (Mary) of Fort Calhoun, and Jeff (Shelley) of Bennington; grandchildren Jacob and Alissa Witzke, Alex and Schyler Pauba, Morgan and Jessica Dodge, Sarah and Elaine Feldman, Lauren, Becca, Brent, Andrew, and Kaiden Pauba, and Chelsea Pauba, as well as eleven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her sister Audrey Grosshuesch, brothers Adrian, Winston, Donald, Lloyd, Dale, Glenn, and Vernon Wernecke, and by beloved grandchild Rachel Pauba Simons.

A memorial service for Ethel will be held Monday, January 22, 2024 at 11:00 AM at Presbyterian Church of the Cross, 1517 S 114th St, Omaha, Nebraska 68144.