Gertrude Gus G. Lohse

The former Gertrude Olga Gustafson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on December 3, 1919, the daughter of Charles Leonard and Gertrude Remington Gustafson. To avoid confusing mother and daughter, she was nicknamed “Gus.” Gus spent much of her youth in McDonald, Kansas, where school officials relented to her strong willed pleas to start first grade at the age of only 4. Her precocious academic instincts were validated and twelve years later Gus graduated as Salutatorian of McDonald High School. Thus Gus' strong willed ways were rewarded early on and became a distinguishing characteristic both loved, and loathed by those who knew her.

She met her late husband, William M. Lohse ("Bill") at the Colorado State Teachers College, “Greely,” where Gus studied with the not-yet-famous author James Michner. Perhaps it was his influence that resulted in her penning of a now long lost volume of original poetry. Following college Gus taught for 18 years, primarily English and Latin at the secondary school level. After Bill started his distinguished Navy career early in WWII, Gus accompanied him to the Naval stations around the world, including Kwajalein, Guam, Cuba, and Philippines. In these exotic outpost, Gus often taught school and even started educational programs for children of military personnel on babes which had no schools.

The Navy gave Bill a Scholarship to the Harvard Business School, on the east coast. But it was only when Gus began editing his papers that his grades improved from B’s to A’s. Bill graduated in 1947 and at this most famous of all Harvard Commencements, Bill and Gus listened to heard Secretary of State George Marshall announce what came to be known as “The Marshall Plan” to provide economic assistance for European nations recovering from World War II. After Harvard Bill was transferred to the West Coast and Gus began her Master’s degree at Berkeley’s renowned Graduate School of Education in 1950. Gus had completed half of that program with honors grades when Bill transferred back to the East Coast. There Bill pursued a Master’s degree in foreign relations at the Naval War College. Yet shortly before completing this degree he accepted a transfer back to the West Coast for a job that would enhance his chances of being promoted to Captain: he became the ranking supply Corp officer on the USSS Ranger, an aircraft carrier routed for Asia during in the early years of the Viet Nam War. This strategy worked and less than a year later Bill was promoted to Captain, the Navy’s second highest ranked and transferred back to the East Coast. He was assigned to work at the Pentagon as one of the highest ranking officers in the Navy Supply Corp, a position generally recognized as a proving ground for promotion to Admiral.

While in the Washington Area, Bill and Gus adopted two children; Christopher (1958) and Charles (1960). Later they took on care of a foster child and of Bill’s ageing mother, whose faltering memory made it difficult to live independently. Doctors told Bill that certain illnesses his children and his mother had, would improve if they were to live in a warmer climate. For this reason Bill gave up the opportunity to be promoted to Admiral, retired from the Navy, and accepted a comparably senior administrative position at NASA in Florida.

So the now six-member extended family traveled to Florida crammed in a Vintage Rambler station wagon, arriving in 1965. This was during the height of the “space race” where the nation husbanded its resources towards achieving a fallen president’s goal of “putting man on the moon before the end of the decade.” Thus Bill was immediately caught up in the tumult, working 14-hour days, six days a week in his new job. With equal fervor Gus heroically cared for three children and an aging mother-in-law, in cramped temporary military housing.

Frequent relocations during Bill’s Navy career made it impractical to purchase a house, so Gus and Bill looked forward to owning their first home. The 3.5 acre of undeveloped river front forest property cost only $17,000 in 1965. They cleared only the front third of this property and worked with a local realtor to design and build their dream home. From the beginning home ownership was full of surprises: on the cold December day the family attempted to move in, the brand new heating system broke and they encamped in a motel for several days until it was repaired. When they did move in, they found three doors have been installed that did not exist on the building plan. Nonetheless they loved the first and only home they ever owned. It was here that they raised their children and lived for over three decades.

Gus broadened her interests in the arts. She won awards in local shows for the roses she raised, flower arranging, and oil painting. In this last regard, she painted some two-dozen paintings, many of which hung in the homes of friends and most of which have been passed on to their descendants. Gus also became active in community organization including the Cocoa beach Presbyterian Church, the Republican Women’s Club, the Cocoa-Rockledge Garden Club and the Brevard Symphony Guild. Gus remained actively involved in education: Volunteering at her son’s schools, teaching vacation bible school, and even returning to public school teaching during a teacher’s strike. There too Gus’ reputation as strong-willed followed her. As the principal of that school warned the vice-principal upon introducing the new strike- breaking second grade teacher, “This is Mrs. Lohse; she has very definite ideas.”

Gus and Bill were active socially, holding many memorable dinner parties for Navy, NASA, and personal friends—who looked forward to Gus’ Elaborate banquets Gus prepared. Old Navy friends turned tourist were frequent and welcomed guest over the years. These guests including Bill’s executive officer from his Pentagon days, who had been promoted to the admiralty, which Bill would likely have held.

Yet Bill too had been promoted to senior management. At NASA he became the Deputy Director for Procurement, Supply, and Transportation. In that senior roll, Gus would assist Bill in hosting congressmen senators, and other dignitaries at NASA launches. One of these luminaries was the now-famous author James Michener, who well remembered “Gussy.” Bill remained at NASA for nearly two decades spanning the three major efforts of the golden years of space exploration: the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle Programs. It was a source of humor and pride that one day each year, during the time between Christmas and New Years Day when NASA was minimally staffed and the Deputy Directors rotated covering administrative responsibilities, Bill was the Director of the Kennedy Space Center. Usually he spent these days assembling Christmas bicycles, model trains, and other Christmas presents he and Gus had bought for the boys.

After Bill retired from NASA, he and Gus traveled extensively, to Europe, Hawaii, and—on their 50th wedding anniversary—cruising to Alaska. During part if this time they took in three Vietnamese foster children whose mother abandoned them and whose father was ill. Under such stressful conditions children sometimes behave unpredictably: the oldest of these three children, a young teenage boy, threatened Gus with a baseball bat. He too learned about her strong willed ways.

As Bill and Gus aged, the chores of running a large family home began to outweigh the pleasures they had enjoyed for so many years. In 1997, they sold the home and relocated to a condominium alongside Rockledge Country Club and its golf course. There were some miscalculation: they hoped to enjoy the golf course that constituted their backyard. Instead they ended up spending more time tending to arthritis and listening to the misaimed gold balls which frequently thumped upon their roof. Bill's golf game came to consisted of collecting these balls and presenting a large box of them to Chuck each Christmas. Yet Gus and Bill remained happy, hosting frequent family reunions which now included a grandson, Mathew. Their community involvement began to shift more towards charitable efforts: Gus made lunches for homeless people at the Presbyterian Church and Bill Volunteered to deliver Meals on Wheels.

Eventually old caught up to Bill. Gus nursed him through several years if declining health, at first hiring home health aides to tend to him and later spending hours visiting him every day in nursing homes and hospitals. Four operations to replace Bill’s arthritic knee resulted only in infections resistant to antibiotics. Bill succumbed to a combination of ailments worsened by these infections in 2005.

After Bill’s death Gus sold many of the processions they had accumulated over years of touring the world with the Navy. This down-sizing facilitated her relocation to a senior living center, Courtenay Strings Village in Merritt Island. At Courtenay Springs Gus continued to play bridge and then took up BINGO. She participated in physical fitness and social groups, and for quite a while continued driving. In late 2010, Gus’ had a series of more frequent and serious health problems. These led her to reside in long series residential healthcare centers for the remainder of her life. Nonetheless she continued to enjoy visits from friends, church member, and annual birthday dinner parties with close friends, known among themselves as “The Birthday Girls.”

In June of 2014, however Gus’ health declined precipitously. Yet one last time her strong willed ways held sway: Gus lived on for 7 months while her doctors from Weushtoff, Kindred, and Holmes hospitals daily proclaimed her imminent demise. (Got you, guys!) It was on February 19, 2015 that Gus obliged them and she once phrased it, “went to her reward,”

Gus leaves behind her son, Christopher, of Cocoa, Florida and New Haven, Connecticut. Gus’ younger son, Charles, predeceased her, leaving his widow Terri Lohse and grandson, Matthew Lohse, who reside in Marietta, Georgia. Other relatives included several nieces, nephews and their families, primarily from Bill's side of the family.

In lieu of flowers, and memorial gifts to the Cocoa Beach Presbyterian Church, where the Lohse family worshipped for four decades, or to the Brevard Symphony Orchestra to which both Gus and Bill also devoted much time, effort, and support.