Bernadine Dube was born Bernadine Anna Draeger, Dec 18, 1916 to August and Alma Draeger in The Grove, TX. She was a ‘preemie’ who was kept in the kitchen oven to keep her warm her first weeks. Like most children in the tiny German farming community, she grew up working on the family farm, picking cotton in long sleeves, doing countless chores, and attending St. Paul’s Lutheran Church School. She loved the close-knit community of young people and there met her future husband, Charlie Dube. She attended Clifton College, earning a teaching degree, and for a few years taught 8 grades at once at St. Paul’s School in The Grove, supported by some stern pastoral oversight. She married Charlie, a pharmacist also from The Grove, in 1940 and shortly moved to Houston, where they would live the rest of their lives. The exception was a year or so stint in San Diego, where they lived during Charlie’s Navy service. They originally planned to stay in San Diego. But their decision to remain close to family in Texas enriched their lives and greatly so the lives of their sons, Chris and Mike, who had the joy of growing up with dozens of cousins from the large Dube and Draeger families. – Sometimes it’s hard to remember that your mother had a “life before kids”, but the stories, pictures and touching letters from those years reveal an active young couple very much in love and savoring life – fishing on a stream, roping a calf at the farm, teasing in photos to Charlie at sea, and picnicking lazily with friends. – As they started a family in 1950 and Charlie got his own classic American drugstore, Bernadine was all places at once – raising the boys, helping out in the store, and staying very active in the Trinity Lutheran Church Ladies Circle, where her childhood quilting skills put many a blanket in impoverished hands. – When Charlie passed away in 1989 after a too-brief retirement, Bernadine kept active at church, in her garden, with her walking partner (“3 times around the park make a mile” she’d always say), and volunteering at the thrift shop where her drugstore experience made her a quick study in personal service. – Two days after her 92nd birthday, she suffered a stroke and was expected to pass shortly. But she recovered much of her capabilities and kept trouncing her son in dominoes until her last few months, never in pain. – Now Bernadine and Charlie are together again – two gentle souls who brought love and laughter, and shared a blessed life.
Arrangements under the direction of Heights Funeral Home, Houston, TX.
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