Ella VanderLugt

Learning, loving, and helping, those were the things Ella VanderLugt did best. She was a remarkable woman, of great faith and compassion, who devoted her life to helping people. She was a caring nurse and missionary, and a loving wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Most of all, Ella was a light in the life of all who knew her.

Ella’s story began on a cool fall day in 1920, in the little town of Rock Valley, Iowa. Those were exciting times in this country, and times of great change, as well. John and Bessie (VanderStoep) Bajema underwent a change of their own on October 4, 1920, with the birth of a baby girl they named Ella.

Ella went to school in Rock Valley, and after she graduated, she began teaching in a little, one-room schoolhouse there. Eventually she moved her teaching career to Chicago, and later to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

There she met a man named Adolph VanderLugt, and they quickly fell in love and were married. It wasn’t long before the newlyweds became parents, too, and before they knew it, they were the proud parents of five terrific children, Eleanor, John, Carol, Ron and Alvin.

Ella was a wonderful wife and mother, and great cook, too. She was famous for her pot roast, salmon patties, and the mountain of sweets she baked in her kitchen (she had a great sweet tooth).

The family were faithful members of the West Leonard Christian Reformed Church, where Ella was a very active Bible school teacher and Clavinets leader. Ella’s faith was always an integral part of her life. It was her faith that gave her strength when her husband died in 1971, and gave her the strength to go back to school to become a registered nurse.

She worked at St. Mary’s Hospital until she retired, and then worked at the Christian Rest Home well into her 70s. She also remained very active in her faith, and took missionary trips to Honduras and Vicksburg, Mississippi, too. Ever one to keep learning, she enjoyed playing Scrabble and other games on her computer.

Eventually her health began to diminish, however, and Ella went to live at the Christian Rest Home where she once worked. Sadly, Ella died there on Thursday afternoon, January 3, 2008 at the age of 87.

Ella was a wonderful woman, who lived a wonderful life, a life full of family, faith and fond memories. Most of all, she was a woman who never stopping learning, loving, or helping, every day of her life, a life that lives on today in all who knew her. She will be greatly missed.

Ella was preceded in death by her husband Adolph VanderLugt and her son, Alvin VanderLugt. She is survived by her children, Eleanor and Duane Ritsema, John and Lynn VanderLugt, Carol and Brian Stevenson, Ronald and Colleen VanderLugt; her daughter-in-law, Ellen Tolbert; 14 grandchildren; 18 great grandchildren; her sisters, Ann and Edward Veining, Edith Blankespoor; her sister-in-law, Agnes Bajema; several nieces, nephews and many friends. Ella worked as an RN at St. Mary’s Hospital and the Christian Rest Home. A service to celebrate her life will be held on Monday afternoon at 1:00 PM at West Leonard Christian Reformed Church with Rev. Neil Jasperse officiating. Ella reposes at Heritage Life Story Funeral Home - Van’t Hof Chapel, 851 Leonard St. NW, where relatives and friends may meet her family on Sunday from 2-4 and 7-9 PM. Contributions in her memory may be made to the Christian Rest Home or West Leonard Christian Reformed Church. To sign her guest book or share your own memory of Ella, visit her web page at www.lifestorynet.com