Anna Mathilde Baseler

Anna Mathilde Baseler 101 years old died on August 30th in Puyallup Washington. She was born in Altshausen, Germany July 3, 1924, but her father did not register her birth until the next day. Her official birth July 4th turned out to be the national holiday of her new home when the Kienzle family immigrated to the United States when she was four years old. She grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan with many aunts, uncles and cousins from the same area of Germany. Her artistic abilities were on display in her high school plays and art class. She worked at a German restaurant as a waitress to help pay for her studies at the University of Michigan. It was there that she met a young soon to be ordained pastor. They were married at Zion Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor before leaving for his first parish in Kellogg, Idaho. Trading her life in a university town for a mining town was a big change for Anna, but soon their first child Rebecca was born and two and a half years later Randolph joined the family. She would help her husband with church duties as he pursued the building of a new church sanctuary. A call to a mission church in Gladstone, Oregon moved the family to a new parsonage and another church building program. Another son, Theodor completed the Baseler family in Oregon. Anna was involved in the church activities, singing in the choir, learning to play the organ, helping with the preschool, and church decor. At home she sewed her own clothes and even upholstery. She continued to work on her oil paintings, learning new techniques. The next chapter of her life began when her husband accepted a call to Bellevue, Washington where another congregation needed a new church building. They moved into a parsonage but eventually were able to buy their own house. With two in college and one in high school, they had more freedom to travel. They were able to take groups to Israel, Egypt and Germany and later visit Australia and New Zealand. She always enjoyed traveling and meeting people, learning about new places. And of course, it meant a lot to visit her birthplace and meet her relatives in southern Germany. Her husband passed away at seventy-one and she continued to live in their home until at the age of ninety-two she moved into an apartment at University House in Issaquah. There she enjoyed activities such as lectures from university professors, field trips and meeting new friends.

She is preceded in death by her husband Reverend Edward R. Baseler, her parents Friedrich and Anna Kienzle, her brother, Frederick Kienzle and her sister, Elsie Lovelace.

She was the loving mother to daughter Rebecca Hagerman and her husband Jesse, son Randolph Baseler and his wife Linda, and son Theodor Baseler and his wife JoAnne; loving grandmother to Timothy Hagerman, Heidi Kirchoff and her husband Steven, Jed Hagerman, Christiana Nelson and her husband Jacob, Thomas James Baseler and his wife Casey, and Andrea Verner and her husband Cole and the loving great-grandmother to Finley, Cole and Elise Kirchoff, Kinsley and Maximus Nelson, Sidney and Harper Baseler and Madeline and Olivia Verner.

A celebration of her life will be held at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church, 411 156th NE, Bellevue, Washington on Monday November 3, 2025, at one o’clock followed by a reception.