Beulah L. Thompson, 98, of rural Elroy went home to be with her heavenly father Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, while surrounded with family.
She was born March 30, 1915, to August and Mabel (Worden) Vieth in the town of Bloomer, Marshall County, Minnesota. At an early age, her parents moved their family and returned to their birthroots in Monroe County, Wis., first settling near Cashton and moving ultimately to a farm on Fowlers Prairie near Elroy.
Beulah attended school at Fowlers Prairie School and for a short time at Sparta High School, until finances demanded she take a job cleaning a railroad workers’ boarding house in Elroy at $2 per week.
In late 1935, while attending a party at the Mutch farm on Millards Prairie, she met the love of her life, Russell Robert Thompson. They married April 6, 1936, and worked together on the farm they purchased in 1938 on Millards Prairie, until Russell passed on June 16, 1968. She lived out her final years at her beloved farm on Millards Prairie.
Resourceful and creative, she blessed those around her with homemade gifts. She was never one to sit idle; instead, she kept busy with her community projects, gardening, sewing and writing. Beulah was an active member of the United Methodist Church and Elroy Woman’s Club and a founding member of the Millards Prairie Homemakers Club and the Hill and Dale Garden Club.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Russell; her eldest son, Wayne; her parents, August and Mabel; her brothers, Gordon, Earl, Levi, Weston and Leland Vieth; and her sisters, Lula Von Haden and Olive Board.
Survivors include her daughter, Suann (Arnie) Degenhardt of Norwalk; her son, Dale (Mary J. West) Thompson of El Paso, Texas; and 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, all who cherish the times they had with Beulah.
A service in celebration of Beulah’s life will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 1, at United Methodist Church in Elroy, with Rev. Peace Kim officiating. Beulah will lay in rest next to Russell in Millards Prairie Cemetery in rural Elroy. Friends may call at the church from 10-11 a.m. Friday. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred for the Millards Prairie Church fund.
The Picha Funeral Home of Elroy is assisting the family. For online information, go to www.pichafuneralhomes.com.
