Edythe Louise Kunkle, daughter of Percy Kunkle and Mary (nee Shriver) Kunkle, began her life on December 8, 1915 on her parents’ Nowlin, South Dakota homestead. She grew up in humble means. The family shared their bathwater which was then used to scrub the floor in their tar-paper shack. A crock in the ground served as their refrigerator. Water was first filtered and then boiled before drinking. Though a humble beginning, few became as successful at living life as Edythe in the years that followed.
Edythe left the homestead and moved to Lead, South Dakota in 1926 at twelve-years-of-age. She cleaned a home next to the public school and helped her mother sell homemade potato chips. Her father worked in the Homestake Gold Mine. She loved and admired her brothers Harry, Ross and Glen. Glen was also her teacher in a one-room schoolhouse.
Edythe helped finance Mount Rushmore by personally giving its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, ten cents when he visited her elementary school to share his vision. She had two uncles born during the Civil War and three ancestors served in the Revolutionary War. Her third cousin, once-removed and six years her junior became famous for his orbital flight in 1962, John Glenn.
Edythe’s parents moved to Rinard, Iowa in 1929 where her mother became the postmistress. She spent her sophomore year at Wessington Springs Methodist School in South Dakota in order to strengthen her Christian faith and later graduated from Rinard High School. Following graduation, she acquired a two-year teaching certificate from Morningside College and secured her first elementary teaching job in Lohrville, Iowa in the fall of 1934. In June of 1941, Edythe married the handsome and ambitious Clem Cavanaugh. She endured many flips, dips, and climbs as Clem, soon-to-be WWII bomber pilot, trained in his AT-9. After the War they raised their four children: Mary Rippey; Patrick Cavanaugh (wife, Janita); Susan Butcher; and Tim Cavanaugh (wife, Julie) on their family farm near Lohrville, Iowa.
Edythe began working for Iowa Central Community College at 55. She helped hundreds of people in a seven-county area secure their GED and retired at 80. Through her strength of character forged during a lifetime of frugality and delayed gratification, she paid off the family farm.
She was the quintessential friend, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law and teacher in the years that ensued. Oh yes, her cooking, which thousands enjoyed, rivaled meals offered by the finest dining establishments.
On October 13, 2013, at the age of 98, her farmhouse, which she had made into a lovely home, was leveled and Edythe moved to Colorado. Every caregiver and fellow resident fell in love with this remarkable woman who quickly won the admiration and affection of all she met with her love of humor, positive disposition, eager smiles and interest in others. The staff she was with commented that they were better people for knowing her.
To the day of her death, she met her every financial obligation and created through faithful, self-sacrificial effort a financial legacy for her posterity. She lived independently until 104 before passing at 106. Upon her death, Edythe had 15 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren. She was one of the last and one of the greatest of the Greatest Generation.
MEMORIAL SERVICES HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED:
In COLORADO: Saturday, February 26, 11:00 am, Stonebrook Manor, 650 East 124th St., Thornton, CO.
In IOWA: Saturday, JUNE 11, 11:00 am Lake City Community Memorial Building, 105 North Center Street, Lake City, Iowa
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Lohrville Visions. P.O. Box 143, Lohrville, IA 51453. The Lohrville Visions Inc. group will use the funds for a hometown project.
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