Arlene R Weaver

Funeral Services will be held at a later date.  She will be laid to rest next to her parents at Andrew Cemetery, Friend.  Memorials in lieu of flowers may be directed to Tabitha Nursing and Rehabilitation Center or to the Milligan Fire Department.  Lauber Funeral Home, Friend, is entrusted with the care and arrangements. 

Arlene Rose Weaver, daughter of Louis and Rose (Michl) Weaver, was born on the farm in Saline county, seven miles east of Milligan, Nebraska on April 9, 1931.  The farm was on the Tobias, Nebraska mail route.  She passed away on Wednesday, November 25, 2020, at Tabatha Nursing and Rehabilitation Care Center in Lincoln at the age of 89 years, 7 months and 16 days.

Arlene was the youngest of five children and grew up on the family farm.  She attended Saline County rural school district 77 (Opossum Hill) for eight years and attended Milligan High School, graduating with the class of 1948. When she was a child, Arlene always said that when she grew up she was going to be a teacher.  When she played with dolls, kittens and puppies, they were always her pupils.  When one animal left her, there was always one more to take their place.

She took Normal (teacher) training courses while attending Milligan High School and started teaching at the age of 17.  She taught Saline County rural school district 67 (Atlanta Center) for six years and Saline County rural school district 77 (Opossum Hill) for two years.  She then taught the first and second grades in the Milligan Public School for seven years.  During this time she attended summer sessions at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.  She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in 1960 and her Masters of Elementary Education degree in 1963.  In the fall of 1963 she started teaching the second grade in the Lincoln Elementary school in Hastings, Nebraska.  She taught there for two years.  Besides attending summer sessions at the University of Kansas, she was granted a leave of absence for one semester from the Hastings Public Schools to continue attending the University of Kansas to earn a Specialist of Education Degree in Curriculum and Instruction in 1968.  She returned to Hastings and was a Reading Specialist in the Hastings Public Schools for nine years. Arlene was the primary caregiver to her parents as they became more unable.  Her mother passed away on November 13, 1964 and her father passed away on August 14, 1974.

After her parents both passed, she was granted a year leave of absence from the Hastings Public School to complete the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Elementary Education in 1975 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.  She then taught elementary education courses and supervised student teachers at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, which is close to Cleveland, for four years.  Arlene returned to Nebraska and had the same duties at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont for the next eighteen years.  She was promoted to full professorship in 1992.  She retired in 1997 after teaching a total of forty-eight years.

Arlene went to most of the forty-eight states, Canada and Mexico during the summers with study tours conducted by the Kearney State Teacher College, which later became the University of Nebraska at Kearney.  After she retired, she continued to travel to the remaining states so she was able to complete the goal of visiting all fifty states.

While in the teaching profession, she was a member of various professional and civic organizations.  She retained life memberships to the University of Nebraska Alumni Association and the Nebraska Council of Parents and Teachers (PTA).  She was a member of the South Gate Methodist Church in Lincoln.  She moved to the Legacy retirement home in Lincoln in the spring of 1998, then to Tabitha Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Lincoln in the spring of 2018.

Arlene was always very energetic.  She owned houses every place she lived and maintained them, as well as growing vegetable and flower gardens, all while performing her professional duties.  She always appreciated nature and enjoyed walking and exercising.  Even after she retired to the Legacy, she took long outdoor walks to enjoy the sunshine, sunrises, sunsets and the seasonal sights of nature.

Arlene was preceded in death by her parents; her brother, David Weaver and his wife Grace; her brother, Clarence Weaver and his widow Betty Weaver Bredemeyer; her sister, Ruby Rooney and her husband John; her sister, Dorothy Rezny and her husband Norman; and her half-brother, Lonnie Weaver and his wife Katherine.  She is survived by nieces and nephews.

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