Delma E. Means

Delma Emalene Fischer Means was born on February 22nd, 1925 in Lincoln, NE to Jake and Alice Fischer. She was their only child. Her father was a pastor who had Ellen G White as one of his teachers. He pastored German SDA churches and was assigned every few years to a different church. So they moved several times throughout the upper plains states while she was growing up: Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Her father and his family had immigrated from Russia and bought farms throughout the Midwest. One of those farms was south of Herrick, South Dakota, purchased by Delma’s grandfather Phillip. After Jake retired from ministering, the family moved to Herrick. Jake, with the help of his father Phillip, built a home on the 320 acre farm land. It was completed in 1943 and was the family’s first home they had owned. They grew alfalfa and wheat, raised cows and chickens and sold butter and eggs for some extra income. Times were tough and 80 acres had to be sold. Delma worked hard milking cows and doing other farm chores as a child. She had a stern upbringing and learned not to complain.

Delma went to Herrick schools for a time until her last 2 years of high school when she attended Plainview Academy, a boarding school in Redfield, SD. She graduated in 1943. Later in life, she would become the academy alumni coordinator for many years, arranging reunions in South Dakota and in Loma Linda.

After high school she visited two of her aunts on her mother’s side, Daisy and Louise, who lived in Loma Linda, CA. She decided to stay and pursue a nursing career. This was postponed while she cared for her ailing mother. She worked at the Loma Linda Sanitarium in the kitchen while attending San Bernardino Valley College for several years with a trip to Europe somewhere in the middle. She received her nursing license in 1953 and continued working for the Sanitarium (now Loma Linda University Medical Center) as an LVN until 1989 for a total of 46 years!

She met Douglas Means in Loma Linda at a church function but Delma make it clear that she wanted to travel to Europe and get her nursing degree before she married. She did and then they later met again and where soon married on July 11, 1961 in Redlands, CA. She was a devoted wife for 54 years. They raised a daughter Alyce and a son Rylan in San Bernardino, CA in a home built by Douglas and his father. Every summer, Delma brought her family out to her beloved family homestead in South Dakota for a week or two. After retirement she and Douglas annually made the trip through 2009 and spent the whole summer. Planning and preparing for the trek always excited and energized her. She called it “home”. Delma loved South Dakota and vowed to always keep the land her family owned.

She was a lifelong SDA and faithfully attended church. She was active in church functions and committees. She was, at various times, a depute direct of the youth club “Pathfinders”, in the choir, on the social committee, head deaconess and on the church board. She especially enjoyed helping to plan and arrange wedding and baby showers, to call other members when someone was ill or hospitalized to start a prayer chain, and to prepare meals for bereavement services. She was always ready to do her part in service for others. She spent many years caring for both of her aunts, Daisy and Louise, as they aged. This allowed them to live in their home until their passing; up to age 99 for Louise.

Just before retirement, she was persuaded to begin walking for health and socialization with a new club called the Loma Linda Lopers and she began doing 5k and 10k events. The club’s big event was the Honolulu Marathon and she trained even harder to be able to participate in it. She did and finished all 26.2 miles in the mid 1980’s. Then she did it again several more years! She also enjoyed dried flower arranging for several years, using the creations to decorate the house, and the fellowship hall at church for potlucks and other social events.

She was preceded in death by her mother father and her husband who died in January 2015. She died 18 months later of heart failure on July 17, 2016, in Huntington Beach, CA. She is survived by her daughter, Alyce and son, Rylan and two granddaughters, Clare and Rachel.