Connie Lee Smith Willmert

Connie Lee Willmert, 73, passed away peacefully on Sunday, June 9, 2024 due to a long battle with cancer. She was born on Sunday, October 22, 1950, in Peoria, Illinois to Raymond & Lois Smith. She married her best friend, Timothy Willmert in November of 1973, and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in November of last year.

Connie loved people. She enjoyed countless hours of connecting and making them feel undeniably important. When her sons were younger, she’d annoy their middle school mentalities by chatting up EVERYONE no matter where they went. It could be the grocery store or being the last to leave church. She would connect everyone and “talk their ear off”. Connie never knew a stranger. When looking back, it went against the advice of “don’t talk to strangers,” because she did it all the time. For her boys, it was for safety, but for herself, she loved people.

Throughout her years, she held various jobs beyond being a wife and mother. She was a hospital administrator and a secretary, but the job she loved the most was being on the school board in the North Pekin Marquette Heights school district in Illinois. She cherished her time serving on the school board supporting the very schools her sons attended. Maybe it was to keep tabs on them or to secure her spot in attempting to hug them as they were given their diplomas at graduation by the school board; regardless, she loved people and to serve in that capacity.

Connie will be missed greatly by many people around her, even more so by her sisters who she is survived by; Charlotte Smith and her husband, Dan, as well as her sister, Gloria Janssen, by her children and their significant others, Bryan Willmert and Monica Simon, and Brent Willmert and Kate Whiting, by her grandchildren, Josephine Willmert, Emily Whiting, Violet and Will Erickson, Jakob, Ella and Olivia Willmert, and Kendal and Ava Farnum. Extended family also includes: Pat and Gayla Willmert, Harry and Jan Willmert, Jason and Tonia Willmert, Matt and Kim Willmert, Roger and Lisa Willmert and Priscilla and Brian Nagel.

Most of all, she will be missed by her loving husband, Timothy Willmert, who was always by her side truly through sickness and in health.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Raymond and Lois Smith, by her brothers, Larry and Ronald Smith, and by her brother-in-law, Larry Willmert.

There are countless people to thank for Connie’s care the last few years of her life, and for everyone at the Shelby Cancer Care Center, she saw you too as an extension of her family. Much like anyone at the grocery store, church or Walmart, she would talk your ears off too. She talked endlessly about you, because you cared for her at her most vulnerable time in life.

For those who can hear down from heaven, if Connie hasn’t found you yet, she will. Be ready for her to greet you, because Connie never knew a stranger and she loves people.