Emma E. (Klimack} Boedeker joined her husband in heaven on July 7, 2022. She was born on December 20, 1924, and baptized eight days later. She grew up on the farm in Beaver Country, Pennsylvania, where farm work was done using horses to plow and harvest. School was in a one room building serving eight grades and she had only three teachers in all those years. To attend high school, she worked for a family in town, in Zelienople, in return for room and board. She walked the seven miles to and from school each day. In her last year of high school, the United States entered World War II, and she saw her five older brothers don uniforms of the United States military.

After High School she felt college was not possible because the family was too poor. She wanted to help others, and began teaching Sunday School, a role she continued for most of her life. She worked a series of jobs during the war: waitress, domestic work, office and lab work at the Lave Crucible Company, and at a small inn she made sandwiches, cleaned, pumped gas, and topped off oil in cars.

After the war, she moved to Davenport, Iowa, where her sister Martha was living. She worked for a construction company, doing all the company’s office work. Her pastor’s wife was a graduate of the Lutheran Deaconess School, and Emma decided to attend that institution’s one-year church secretary course. When there she instead enrolled in the parish workers course, which gave her the entrée into social work, supporting her life’s passion.

After several years as a social worker at the Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia, she was encouraged to attend Theil College. Working part time in the college kitchen, she also was invested as a Deaconess which helped with tuition. She wore the garb and was known as “Sister Emma.” She also returned to Philadelphia in summers to continue her work at Settlement House. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in social science. Her time as a deaconess lasted only a few years, as she found it confining and felt she could continue Christian service other ways.

She took a position as a social worker in Detroit, remaining there until she returned to school. She earned a Masters degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964. After graduation she moved back to Iowa and she eventually met Burleigh Boedeker. They married at Zion Lutheran Church in Harmony, Pennsylvania in 1972. She was featured in Who’s Who in American Women in the 1970s. Retirement life found them initially splitting time between Florida and North Carolina. Eventually they called Hendersonville, North Carolina, alone home. Emma continued to live there after Burleigh’s passing in 2012. Emma continued her active involvement in her church and enjoying living in the mountains.

In 2019 she moved to Columbiana, Ohio, near nieces and her brother Walt. She enjoyed a pleasant life and continued to be known for her sense of humor but contracted COVID. She survived but was left so weak that she passed shortly afterward from natural causes on July 7, 2022. She is survived by two stepsons, Larry Boedeker and Ron Boedeker, one grandson and two greatgrandchildren, and her nieces and nephews Barb Echard, Sande Wilbur, Pat Ziegler, Art Klimack, Bill Klimack, and their families.  

Send to someone

Share this obituary with others

https://everloved.com/life-of/emma-klimack-boedeker/obituary/

Copy