Obit: Butek, Lucille (1911? - 2018)

Transcriber: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Bahrke, Browning, Butek, Heagle, Kennedy, Kondrasuk, Lewis, Sacia, Wetzel

----Source: the Star News (Medford, WI) 6/01/2018

Butek, Lucille (Wetzel) Kondrasuk (1911? - 12 MAY 2018)

Lucille Kondrasuk Butek was called to finish her 107 year journey on May 12, 2018, under hospice care at Aspen Acres in Hayward and with her son Robert at her side.

Lucille’s journey began on the flower-covered prairies of North Dakota. In the fertile farmlands of Wisconsin, she now returns to the earth that nourished her. "Lutz", as her six siblings teased her, was the 1911 first born to Lewis and Isabelle Wetzel on a small homestead, a three mile horseback ride southeast of Beulah. Lew, the wheat farmer/teacher/musician defied the brisk North Dakota conditions by sustaining his growing family with the $5, maybe $6 from his Saturday night fiddling for swirling prairie couples in gingham dresses and bib overalls. The fickle wheat yields, late frosts, hailstorms, withering droughts and prairie fires yielded seven crop failures in thirteen years. In 1923, Lew loaded his few head of cattle and the Beckwith upright grand onto a railroad car and brought his family of nine to Wisconsin.

From Gilman High School, class of 1929, Lucille attended the county normal in Medford, allowing her to teach elementary classes in the Gilman area. After many summer schools, she completed her education major at Wisconsin State College-Eau Claire and later, a master's in music education from Mount Senario in Ladysmith.

Music was her passion, for fifty years the organ at SS. Peter and Paul knew her touch for hymns and liturgy, weddings and funerals. Lucille treasured a 1936 Wetzel family orchestra tour to the west coast. Lew arranged a year in advance with countless inquiries to small-town mayors for play dates, each hand-written and graced with a two-cent stamp. Lucille played the local piano, the small trailer announcing "Lew Wetzel's Wisconsin Brigadiers." The family packed camping gear along with the trumpet, clarinet, drums, two violins and three saxes that were played by her younger siblings.

Lucille wed Polish born John Kondraszuk in 1937. His Gilman Auto Sales business, mechanic skills, hi bus driving and her first grade teaching supported their three children. They raised them in a log cabin on a wooded lot on the village's north side, finally replacing it with their dream home in 1956. John cherished his weekends on the waters of musky-rich Chippewa Flowage and Lucille coaxed bumper crops from her well-tended garden.

Cancer claimed John in 1979 and a friend and tenor in the SS. Peter and Paul choir, Leonard Butek, lost his dear wife, Julia, in 1980. Lucille and Leonard had known one another for some thirty-five years and soon found mutual comfort in their loneliness. They wed in 1981 and Leonard delighted in driving Lucille yearly to visit her roots in North Dakota. All her grandchildren are too young to remember John, for them, they warmly remember the Grandpa Leonard they lost to cancer in 2002. After a stroke at 96, Lucille rotated residences among her children until beginning her residence at Aspen Acres in 2015.

Lucille was preceded in death by her parents, Lew and Belle; her younger siblings, Alice (Jack) Heagle, Francis and Raymond Wetzel, Ruth (John) Lewis and Gladys (Beryl) Browning; and her husbands, John Kondrasuk and Leonard Butek.

Lucille is survived by her children, Raymond (Christine) Kondrasuk of Eau Claire, Jennifer (James) Sacia of Pecatonica, Ill. and Robert (Angela) Kondrasuk of Hudson; her youngest sister, Gertrude (Ray) Bahrke of Milwaukee; her step-children, Leonard (Phyllis) Butek Jr. of Thorp and Cindy Butek (Larry) Kennedy of Cameron; eight grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; plus six step-grandchildren; and nine step-great-grandchildren.

Lucille's rich, influential life will be co-celebrated by Fathers Raju and Heagle at SS Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Gilman on Saturday, June 16 at 11 a.m. with visitation there two hours prior. Memorials may be directed to SS Peter and Paul and to the Gilman Public Schools music department.

Note: Birth information was not published with obituary.