Lucille Freida Anna Pingel's Obituary
Lucille Freida Anna Pingel, 101, of Rogers, AR passed away August 18, 2020. She was born December 9, 1918 in Cherokee, IA to Henry and Marie Niebuhr. She was the older sister of Ina Mae.
Lucille and her parents lived on a farm in the Peterson Community of northwest Iowa. She attended Brooke Consolidated School where she met Burdette Pingel, her high school sweetheart. They graduated high school in 1936. Working in a grocery store in Peterson, she made $3.00 a week, during the depression. On March 5, 1936, Burdette and Lucille were married at her mother’s home. After moving to Sioux City for a brief time, they sold Wearever Cookware for extra money. They moved back to Grandpa Pingel’s farm in the Cherokee area.
In 1948, they moved to her dad’s farm known as the Brooke Community. At that time, they had two children, Dennis (6) and Sandy (5). A year later, Warren was born.
Burdette always had a dream to live in the Ozarks and they made numerous vacation trips to the area. They purchased an 83-acre chicken farm in Gentry, Arkansas in 1966. They raised broilers, cattle, hogs and sometimes, goats. She would work at the grocery store during the day and enjoyed helping Burdette in the evenings. Lucille has always been a hard worker…seems to be like the “Energizer Bunny”… just keeps going.
In 1980, they sold their farm, retired and moved to Rogers to be closer to Warren and his family. They proudly purchased their first beautiful home. They bought a van and would travel and camp, but Lucille was a homebody as she called it. After a year or so, Lucille couldn’t stand the retirement life. She started working at Central Child Care Center at the Methodist Church in downtown Rogers. Being the main cook, with some volunteers, they cooked for up to 75 kids a day. During this time she was known as “Grandma Ceil”. After the 30 years of cooking, she would answer the phones, do laundry and pass out snacks to the children since she was in her mid-nineties. Over the years, children and parents would say “ Hi Grandma Ceil” when she would run into someone she knew.
She received an award for setting up nutritious menus for the daycare from Governor Bill Clinton in Little Rock. She also received an award from the Mayor of Rogers, now the Senator, Steve Womack for providing healthy meals for the children. At age 96, the Methodist Church and Central Child Care honored Lucille recognizing her for many years of service on June 12, 2016.
Lucille’s greatest love besides her husband, was her family. She loved cooking for the holidays with her grandkids, making all kinds of sweet treats like chocolate chip cookies (everyone’s favorite), caramel rolls (Dennis’ favorite) and all types of pies. She would bake bread weekly and during the holidays. Lucille also would make boxes full of cookies, fudge, caramel corn and caramel rolls to send to the families that lived far away. The grandkids would help her bake peppernuts during the Christmas holidays.
She enjoyed reading the “Freedom Press” and would keep her kids updated with all the news of the day around the world. She loved reading the Bible daily and attending weekly Bible study in church, enjoyed needle point, embrodiery and had them framed, playing cards like Spades and 500, playing board games, but the biggest joy was beating her sons, daughter and grandkids at Gin Rummy (she would get this grin that no one liked).
She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Ina, and her husband Burdette of 50 years.
Lucille is survived by son; Dennis Pingel (Nancy) of Ankeny, IA, daughter; Sandy Rolles (Bill) of Valley, NE, son Warren Pingel (Christine) of Rogers, AR, and brother-in-law Kenny Ranta of Excelisor Springs. MO; 10 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life will be held Saturday, August 29, 2020 at 2:00PM at Rogers Christian Church, 2501 West Oak Street. The church asks that all in attendance please wear a mask.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Rogers Humane Society at https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/1965417
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