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Barbara Peterson
In Memory of
Barbara M
Peterson (Kempe)
1923 - 2015
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Egelhof, Siegert & Casper Funeral Home and Crematory
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Obituary for Barbara M Peterson (Kempe)

Barbara M. Peterson, 92, of Dubuque passed away Thursday, October 15, 2015 at her home with her family by her side. Memorial services will be held at 11:30 A.M. Monday, October 19, at Mueller Memorial Chapel at Linwood Cemetery, 2735 Windsor Avenue, Dubuque, where friends may greet the family from 11:00 A.M. to the time of the service. The Egelhof, Siegert, and Casper Westview Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Barbara was born on July 1, 1923 in Des Moines, Iowa, the youngest child of Reverend J. Walton and Mamie Kempe. While living in Des Moines she learned to play piano and developed a lifelong passion for music. In Astoria, Oregon, where the family moved in 1939, she often played piano for her father’s church services, gave recitals, and was the accompanist for the local Coast Guard men’s chorus.

When she was only 3 months old, her family traveled to Boone, Iowa to visit the Reverend and Mrs. Walter F. Peterson. It was here that she first met the young Walter F. Peterson Jr. She must have made a lasting impression on this 3 year boy for 20 years later Walter proposed marriage. To his good fortune, she happily accepted. Following Walter’s return from his military service, they were married at Chisago Lake Lutheran Church, Center City, Minnesota on January 13, 1946.

Six months later they moved to Iowa City where Walter pursued and received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. During these years Barbara worked full time in the University of Iowa business office while Walter was engaged with his class work and research. Evenings she often could be found typing Walter’s assignments, research papers, and eventually his dissertation. In 1952, with Walter’s newly minted PhD in hand, they moved to Milwaukee Wisconsin where he began teaching history at Downer College. With her husband now employed, Barbara’s role in this partnership transitioned to one more in keeping with the times, that of a housewife, and with the arrival of their first son, Walter F. Peterson III, a mother. The demands of being a mother increased in 1960 when their second son, Daniel, was born.

Barbara and Walter’s years in Milwaukee were filled with attending concerts, art exhibitions, culinary adventures in the city’s restaurants, travel, and the fellowship of family and good friends. These were lifelong pursuits and passions for them both and they had a remarkable ability to fulfill them wherever they lived or visited. The family left Milwaukee for Appleton in 1965, and in 1970 moved to Dubuque.
Barbara and her family traveled extensively: camping trips with “the boys” to Wyoming, Montana, Upper Michigan and Canada where Walter Jr. and Dan learned that only way to camp was in a tent; to Washington D.C., Boston, Maine, Quebec, Montreal; and annual trips “up north” to Vilas County, Wisconsin. She researched and planned these ventures and in the pre-Google era had a marvelous ability to find interesting, if not wonderful, places to stay, eat and visit. In the years following Walter’s retirement, the distance if not the pace of their journeys increased: Europe multiple times, Taiwan, China, Canada, Alaska, Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Her favorite destinations, however, were always the “cottage up north” and the Oregon coast.

She loved classical music and listened to it constantly at home, in the car, at the “cottage”, and could identify a work’s composer with ease. She was a longtime supporter of the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, member of the Orchestra League and always enjoyed attending their performances. She was a member of PEO Chapter IK, the Dubuque Museum Art, and the Dubuque River Museum. She was a fabulous and gracious hostess, and skilled at putting “something” together for guests with little notice as Walter often did. Quick with a warm smile, she had little time for arrogance and pretense. Always the mother of her “boys”, she retained to ability to remind them that, though they be adults, she was still their mother and they would do as she said. Her greatest enjoyment was always her life with Walter, her sons, grandchildren (Mike and Tim), and her great-grandchildren, Arya and Corbin. She was a wonderful, loving and fun wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Barbara will surely be missed by all whose lives she touched.

Barbara is survived by, two sons, Walter F. (Jane) Peterson, III of Mazomanie, Wisconsin and Daniel J. Peterson of Bridgeport, Washington; grandsons, Michael (Jessica) of Cross Plains, Wisconsin, and Timothy (Whitney) of Verona, Wisconsin, great-grandchildren Arya and Corbin, and her niece Carrie Peterson (daughters Clare and Laura) of Evanston, Illinois.

Mom, we send our great love and appreciation as you and Dad sail away. You two are a tough act to follow. Godspeed.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra or the Dubuque Museum of Art.

The family thanks the wonderful nursing staff on the 5th floor of Finley Hospital, the staff of Home Instead, each and every one of whom provided mom with exceptional and compassionate care in these last days, and finally the compassionate Hospice staff and especially Jeanette whose warmth, kindness and honesty helped us all more than can be expressed.
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