Lois Dee Germann was born December 24, 1930 to Hans Christian and Wilda Anderson in Morganville, KS, the seventh of eight children.
She attended Morganville schools and graduated from Morganville High School. Arthritis crippled her from a young age. She talked about taking the train to Clay Center for treatments and how her very petite mother had to carry her from the train station to the hospital. The arthritis kept her out of sports so she turned to music. Her music activities presented many opportunities for her to make new friends and in high school that included her future husband. She married Duane Germann on December 24, 1949. Dee attended Kansas State University but the marriage and arrival of their first son, Mark, delayed her education. She picked up a few classes later on but the time commitment of being a farm wife and a mother filled her days. Their first farm was in the Longford area until the opportunity came for their long term home west of Morganville.
Another son, Randy came along. His short time on earth brought them a lot of joy. It’s comforting to know that after all these years they are now reunited.
In her 30’s another child was born, this time a girl, Nikki. There were 12 years between Mark and Nikki so Dee had a built-in babysitter. No, not really! That didn’t fit into Mark’s plans especially when he was in high school and had a date!
Being a farm family meant everyone did their part. Dee could be seen driving tractor or the harvest truck. If she wasn’t working in the field, she was preparing meals to take to the field. During hay season, there were hired hands to cook for as well. Duane had a specific time for his meals, no matter where he was. The most important was the 4:00 pm ‘lunch’. This included a fresh baked dessert or Oreo cookies and a Mountain Dew. And don’t be late with those to the field!
Duane and Dee had a lot of fun with the neighbors. There were many Saturday nights spent playing cards at an old school house not far away and years later, dancing at the Elks Club or Moose Lodge. The farm was also a great place for the cousins to come visit. She loved sharing the farm with the ‘city kids’. One of her favorite times was every November when the pheasant hunters came and she cooked for days in preparation.
Being a farm wife didn’t leave much time for music but if Dee wasn’t in the kitchen when you walked in the house, she was sitting at her piano or organ. She played for the Morganville church for many years. When they moved from the farm to Clay Center in 1988, she played for the United Methodist Church and the Baptist Church. There were some Sunday’s when she played for two churches on the same day. There was one Sunday when she played for 3 churches - Green and two churches in Clay Center. She played and/or sang for many weddings and funerals starting when she was in high school. Dee also played the violin and the guitar but only privately. She didn’t think she was good enough to play in public. It always had to be perfect!
Dee loved sharing her music so when they moved to Clay Center she started giving piano lessons from her home, which she did until 2015. Their ages ranged from 5 – 70! These students brought her so much joy. You would have thought they were her own grandchildren as proud as she was of their accomplishments. Many reached out to her after they moved away to tell her about their continued pursuit of their music careers.
She tried desperately to get her grandchildren and great grandchildren to play the piano but none inherited her talents or passion, much to her chagrin. As described by one granddaughter-in-law “When I think about Grandma, I think about her unconditional love for her grandkids and especially the great grandkids. One of the things that stuck with me the most when getting to now Grandma was her love for teaching kids music. She lived for those kids. I remember her telling me about a young boy who didn’t have an interest in music but after a few months with Dee he grew to love it and she would go on and on about how wonderful he was. You could see it in her smile. She praised her students for their talent whether they were natural musicians with rhythm or tiny tots pounding on the keys. They all received the same patience, love and attention from her. I will always wonder what it would have been like to be one of her students.”
Dee was a lady of many talents and her cooking was the one her family appreciated the most. When the grandkids or great-grandkids came to visit or when she went to visit them she always had a bag of her fresh-baked banana chocolate chip cookies in tow. The most frequently requested items at family gatherings included her ham balls, her special hash browns, vegetable soup or chocolate cake. She shared her baking talents with others as well by baking wedding and special occasion cakes for many years after moving to Clay Center.
Spending time at Grandma’s house usually meant playing cards too. She loved the challenge of a game called Nertz. She taught the whole family how to play and it started many yelling matches across the table, all in fun of course. What we didn’t know at the time she was teaching us was that she put extra cards in her center stack, usually 20 when only 13 were required, to give the beginner a chance to beat her. Once you got the hang of it though, the gloves came off and it was all about winning!
You will notice that she goes by Dee, instead of Lois. And the wrath of Dee came out when anyone called her Lois. For some reason, she just didn’t like the name and even wanted to get her name changed to remove it!
We will miss Dee – a wonderful mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, teacher and friend. We are thankful that she is now dancing in heaven with the family and friends that have gone before her. We thank her for the memories and the love we shared. That stays in our hearts forever.
Visitation will be held on Thursday, January 28, 2021 from 4-7 p.m. at Neill-Schwensen-Rook Funeral Home, Clay Center, Kansas.
Graveside Services will held on Friday, January 29, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. at the Greenwood Cemetery, Clay Center, Kansas.