Lucille M. Peterson, 95, of Wayne, died Friday, Dec. 3, 2021 at Providence Medical Center in Wayne.
Services will be held Friday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Wayne. The service will also be live streamed at oslcwayne.org for those unable to attend. Visitation will be Friday from 9 a.m. until service time at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Wayne. Burial will be in Greenwood Cemetery in Wayne.
Memorials may be directed to the Walter and Lucille Peterson Memorial Scholarship/ Wayne State College and Our Savior Lutheran Church.
Arrangements are with Hasemann Funeral Home of Wayne.
Born as Lucille Marie Husband on April 27, 1926, in North Platte, she was the daughter of a bricklayer and a traditional homemaker. During the summer of her junior year in high school, she began working in the school office and eventually worked as a secretary in the superintendent’s office of North Platte Public Schools. During that time, Lucille met Walter J. Peterson (Pete), a World War II veteran originally from Kearney, who had become the junior high school principal. They were married on July 22, 1951 at the First Baptist Church in North Platte. Four years later, the couple moved to Wayne, where they would live out most of the rest of their lives.
Pete taught in the Education Department at Wayne State College, beginning in 1955, and eventually became Dean of Education, a position he held until Aug. 15, 1971, when he succumbed to cancer. While their children were young, Lucille worked part-time in the Placement Bureau and Registrar’s Office of the college. She became secretary to the college president on June 15, 1971 and remained in that position for 31 years. Her service spanned the tenures of nine college presidents. In that capacity, Lucille became a prominent, highly respected, and valued fixture at the Hahn administration building.
Even after her official retirement, however, Lucille voluntarily continued her faithful service to the college by collating, organizing, and filing historically important documents that could be transferred to the newly emerging digital technology. She was remarkably adept at learning how to use computers in this ongoing work. It is hard to overestimate how important Lucille was to both the administration of the college and to the preservation of its history. Well after her retirement, many relied on her memory of former staff and students and of minute details about Wayne State.
Lucille was also a devout member of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Wayne. She rarely missed a Sunday service, and even while residing in assisted living at Kinship Pointe, she listened faithfully to the church services broadcast online. She was a firm believer in the Christian Gospel, in its core teaching to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and in its promise of resurrection and life after death. Lucille was a remarkable example of someone who tried diligently to serve others rather than to be served.
Her hands were rarely still. She enjoyed jigsaw puzzles until near the end. Many who knew her still have a set of her embroidered dish towels and remember her skill at bridge, other card games, and crossword puzzles. She was an active member of PEO and WEOPA (Wayne Educational Office Professionals Association).
Survivors include two daughters, Winona (John) Schneider and Chris (Bill) Fletcher of Wayne, and by four grandchildren and seven great grandchildren: Jeremy (Amy) Fletcher and their children, Erick and Joshua; Shannon (Cory) Wheeler and their son Evan of Lincoln, and their daughter Madison (Mike) Houghtaling; Solomon Schneider; and Thomas (Rita) Schneider and their children Ethan, Simon, and Chloe Lucille. Other survivors include niece Deb (Tom) Ryan, nephews Mike Peterson and Bob Leeper, and Teresita Soriano, who lived with the Petersons as a high school exchange student from 1969-1970.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Pete; her parents, Vernon and Irene Husband; her siblings, Marjorie (Bob) Leeper, Ralph (Pat) Husband, and her twin sister, Luella Husband.
