Notes
Note for: Chad Allen Gerbitz, 19 APR 1974 - 17 FEB 1975
(Undated)
GERBITZ SERVICE HELD THURSDAY
Private services for the immediate family were at 2 p.m. Thursday in
the Ross funeral home, Walnut, for Chad Allen Gerbitz, infant son of
Phillip and Ellen Bodelson Gerbitz of New Bedford. The Rev. Jon
Strolberg of New Bedford Christian Church officiated, and interment was
in the Walnut cemetery. The infant died Monday in Community General
hospital, Sterling.
He was born April 19, 1974. Surviving are his parents; two sisters,
Trudy and Stacy; one brother, Wade, all at home; maternal grandparents,
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bodelson, Princeton; paternal grandmother, Mrs. Nina
Gerbitz, walnut.
Memorials may be directed to the Manlius ambulance service.
Notes
Note for: Letha Darlene Peck, 24 MAR 1913 -
(Undated, 1935)
WYANET COUPLE WED IN SABBATH SERVICE HERE
Miss Letha Peck and Laurence Eckberg were married Sunday afternoon at
1:30, at the First Lutheran parsonage in this city. Rev E. T. Peters
read the single ring ceremony. Witnessing the service were Mrs. Jesse
Peck and Mrs. Olaf Eckberg.
The bride is the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Peck of Wyanet,
formerly of Bureau Township. She graduated from the Bureau Township High
School with the class of 1932. Her wedding gown was of blue swiss
organdy.
Mr. Eckberg is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Olaf Eckberg and is a graduate of
the Bureau Township School in 1927. He is employed with the Standard Oil
Company of Wyanet.
Notes
Note for: Darell Lawrence Eckberg, 11 AUG 1937 - 2 JAN 1998
(Undated)
DARELL ECKBERG, 60 DIES FRIDAY
Darell L. Eckberg, 60, of 306 Meltzer Street, Walnut, died Friday,
January 2, 1998 at his home.
He was born on August 11, 1937 in Wyanet, the son of Lawrence and Letha
(Peck) Eckberg. He married Carol Adams June 25, 1966 in Streator. She
survives.
He was was employed in maintenance at Creekwood Apartments in Morton.
He served in the U. S. Army from 1960-1963. He was a member of Walnut
American Legion Post #179. He also was a former member of the Walnut
Jaycees and was Jaycee of the year in 1972 and Jaycee of the month in
1974.
Also surviving are one son, Kevin Eckberg of Walnut; one daughter,
Brenda Eckberg of Walnut; his mother, Letha Eckberg of Walnut; one
brother, Donald Eckberg of Rome, IL; one sister, Ann Eckerg (sic) of
Omaha, NE; one niece and one nephew.
He was preceded in death by his father.
Services will be at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 6 at the Garland
Funeral Home in Walnut followed by a 10 a.m. mass in St. John's Catholic
Church in Walnut. Rev. Binh K. Tran will officiate. Burial will be in
the Walnut Cemetery. Graveside military rites will be accorded by the
Walnut American Legion Post #179. Visitation will be held from 4-7 p.m.
on Monday in the funeral home with a rosary at 7 p.m.
Memorials may be directed to St. John's Catholic Church and the Walnut
Fire Department.
Notes
Note for: Ann Elizabeth Eckberg, 16 FEB 1947 - 21 MAY 2001
(Undated)
ANN ECKBERG, A TEACHER THAT'S UNIQUELY QUALIFIED
By Lynne Bechtold
It won't be long until Ann Eckberg will be sorting through her paints
and rummaging around in her pottery supplies as she takes stock of the
materials she'll need to teach art to her students at the Nebraska School
for the Deaf in Omaha. With degrees in Deaf Education and Art, from
Gallaudet College, an accumulation of credits from other major
universities, and experience in workshops and panels for deaf education,
Eckberg is well qualified.
But one qualification sets her apart from others: Eckberg herself has
been deaf since the age of nine. "I am confident with the children. I
can understand them. I understand the deaf culture," says Eckberg a 16
year teacher of the hearing impaired.
Eckberg is a strong supporter of a program that allows for continuous
use of manual communication (sign language) rather than primarily
stressing oral skills. At Nebraska, students live at the school with a
dorm supervisor, thus providing a permanent environment for "free and
natural communication." Though parents may visit at any time and
students return home periodically, the primary bulk of the students' time
is spent at the school, an arrangement that Eckberg regards as
essential: "A lot of my students have told me, 'I wish my parents were
deaf." They want someone to communicate with when they go home."
Expressing her views with an intensity that borders on passion, Eckberg
speaks from experience. Losing her own hearing to a "childhood
sickness--high fever and headache--" when she was "too young to
understand," Eckberg says, "if I had been older, it would have been
harder to accept." Though she accepted her loss, her young life was,
understandably, to be filled with frustrations.
"Mainstreamed" into public education (she attended Princeton and Walnut
schools), Eckberg says that in spite of having some "very good teachers,"
trying to adapt was difficult--a fact compounded by her inability at
first to lip read well.
"We should have sent her away to a school for the deaf, but back then
(1956) we just didn't know," says Eckberg's mother, Lisa (sic), adding
that the prospect of separating from her was a factor in keeping her
daughter at home.
A new world opened for Eckberg when a representative from Gallaudet
College, a pioneering liberal arts college for the deaf in Washington,
D.C., came to Walnut seeking applicants for its hearing impaired
program. A freshman at Walnut, Eckberg knew that she wanted to go to
college, and Gallaudet thought her a likely candidate. She went to the
University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University for summer
programs in manual communications and speech therapy. "I had a six-week
crash course in sign language," recalls Eckberg, laughing, "and I wasn't
very good at it. After a year I was more comfortable."
As it turned out, sign language was the key to unlocking Eckberg's
frustrations in being "unable to communicate or really feel a part of
things." She recalls, "I was very shy and it was hard relating to
others." Her peers were "more concerned with their own lives--they were
going through that age," says Eckberg. "It isn't that people don't
care. It's just something that you have to experience or have had a lot
of training to understand."
Once she enrolled at Gallaudet, Eckberg was able to enjoy a more
spontaneous flow of conversation both with her teachers and with other
members of the deaf community. "I was much more happy. I could to talk
to anyone." (sic)
Citing her own experience, Eckberg says that some parents of the
hearing impaired are given "false hopes and promises" of ways to recover
their children's hearing or achieve a "facade of normalcy." Sadly, she
says, a lot of parents just don't know where to turn: "They might be
told, 'Your child can learn to talk. He can be normal.' What they don't
consider is what the child has in his mind. You can spend 12 years
teaching a deaf child to say a few words, but if he can't read or write,
what's the point? You must consider what is in his mind."
Though she says deaf education is slowly improving, Eckberg feels that
the hearing impaired are "still pushed into programs not suited to their
needs." A firm defender of the deaf "keeping their own culture," Eckberg
argues strongly for the teaching of manual communication: "Signing is a
natural way of communicating for people who don't live in an auditory
world," says Eckberg, who also teaches sign language at the University of
Nebraska to teachers of the hearing impaired. "Our children at school
learn by seeing. They must have visual communication all the time, not
just a few hours a day, not just token communication."
Because her students do live in such a highly visual world, Eckberg
says that art is a very valuable class. "A lot of people think art is
fun and games. I don't see it that way. It's a way they can express
themselves...and they have so much imagination to express," says Eckberg,
adding that the verbal-based subjects, such as English and Reading, often
more difficult. "Art is one way for them to be successful. It is also a
way for them to learn to use their leisure time creatively."
Modern advancements have helped the hearing impaired become more
independent, says Eckberg, who has equipped her home with a decoder for
her television, as well as lighted phone and doorbell system. Her first
phone, with screen and keyboard, was stolen by burglars. "They probably
thought it was a computer," laughs Eckberg. "I bet they were surprised."
Today, Eckberg believes, changes in the way the hearing impaired are
regarded are being made, but she still feels that there is much to be
done in educating the public. "We want to keep our own culture. It's
often the hearing people who aren't happy with our being deaf. I'm
perfectly happy as I am. We don't see it as having a handicap. We call
it an inconvenience."
ANN ECKBERG
Omaha, Neb .-- Ann Elizabeth Eckberg, 54, of 6021 N. 116th Circle,
Omaha, Neb., formerly of Walnut, died Monday, May 21, 2001, at her home.
She was born Feb. 16, 1947, in Princeton to Lawrence O. and Letha
(Peck) Eckberg.
She was a 1965 graduate of Walnut High School, a 1969 graduate of
Gallaudet University with a bachelor of arts degree in education and a
1972 graduate of Catholic University of America with a master of fine
arts degree. She taught at the Nebraska School for the Deaf and at Louis
and Clark Middle School in Omaha for the past 30 years.
Survivors include her mother, Letha Eckberg of Lacon; one brother,
Donald Eckberg of Rome, Ill.; two nieces, Teri Jacob of Ballwin, Mo.,
and Brenda Arity of East Peoria; and two nephews, Kevin Eckberg of Walnut
and Bret Eckberg of Normal.
She was preceded in death by her father and one brother, Darrell.
Graveside services will be at 3 p.m. Sunday in Elm Lawn Memorial Park,
Princeton, with the Rev. John M. Smoke, pastor of the Ohio United
Methodist Church, officiating.
Visitation will be from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Garland Funeral Home, Walnut.
A memorial has been established in her memory.