Alice Elizabeth Ryskey Pflanzer

(Ryskey) Pflanzer

90, died peacefully at her home on December 23, 2010. She was born August 29, 1920, in Cornith, Wisconsin, the firstborn of Reinhold and Laura (Rominski) Ryskey. After completing the eighth grade in Wakefield, Michigan, she left school to begin work to help support her parents, 3 brothers, and 4 sisters during the great depression. She began work as a housemaid and at age 18 became a restaurant waitress. In 1938, she met Raymond Glen Pflanzer and they were married on March 4, 1939, in Ashland, Wisconsin. She continued to work at various jobs for most of her adult life to help provide educational opportunities for her children. She was a very loving and compassionate mother and homemaker who also was an excellent, self-taught, self-employed seamstress making clothes and doing alterations for a variety of clientele. Sewing was her passion and as time permitted she made a quilt for each of her children and grandchildren. At her own expense, she made more than 50 lap quilts for disabled American veterans and quilts for the Wheeler Mission. In 2008 she was formally recognized for her faithful support of America’s deserving veterans and their families by the United States Veterans of Foreign Wars. Alice was preceded in death by her husband, Raymond (February 17, 1991), and by her brothers Rudolph and Arnold Ryskey. She is survived by Clarence Ryskey, and sisters Lorraine (Andersen), Marcella (Miskovich), Gladys (Roland), and Margaret (Swindle). Her five children survive: Richard (Diane) Pflanzer, Raymond (Pat) Pflanzer, Randy (Nancy) Pflanzer, Linda (Richard) Dean, and Patty (Rob) Bowen, as do 14 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. Visitation will be Tues. Dec. 28 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Little & Sons Funeral Home, Beech Grove Chapel. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Wed. Dec. 29. Burial will be at Forest Lawn Memory Gardens. Contributions may be made to the Southside Animal Shelter, 1614 W. Edgewood, Indianapolis, IN 46217.