Lois Elinor Vancil's Obituary
On Sunday afternoon, September 9, 2012; in her beloved childhood home and surrounded by her children and grandchildren; Lois Elinor Vancil peacefully passed into the presence of her Savior at the age of 89.Lois was born in November 3, 1922, in Portland, Oregon, to Richard and Gladys (Allen) Polehn, and came of age during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When she was a nine, her family acquired an insolvent family farm in Redland and set about transforming it into a prospering enterprise. Lois emerged from those formative years with a character indelibly stamped by her parents' model of ingenuity, integrity, thrift, and the prodigious work ethic that is unique to her generation. Lois attended Oregon State University for a short time before she met her future husband Kenneth Theodore Vancil. Shortly after they were married in 1944, Kenneth was deployed in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. Lois and Kenneth had five children before divorcing in 1966. As a home-maker, Lois was thrifty, productive, and devoted to her children. She was a passionate health food devotee before it was fashionable. She was gentle and loving to her children, but a ruthless taskmaster to her battered baking utensils and sewing machine. It seems, looking back, that the old Singer hummed ubiquitously over those decades - only pausing to allow Lois time to muscle eight-loaf batches of whole-wheat bread dough into submission. She was a tiny woman, but her bread-kneading arms were a deceptively formidable force. There were no bread machines in those days, and store-bought Wonder Bread was never an option for her five robust, growing children. And yet, in the midst of all of that, Lois decided to add another task: completing her education. Then, shortly after earning her bachelor of arts in psychology, she returned to her childhood home - the same house that her grandfather built - and took over the reins of her retiring parents' farm.Lois spent the final decades of her life managing her orchards and fields and being a very special grandma. She was keenly interested in politics, hosted English teas, wrote whimsical tales about the animals on her farm, never missed Antiques Road Show, and -- as her marked-up Bible and well-thumbed collection of Jane Austen novels testify -- loved to read. Lois was survived by her children: Bernard Kenneth Vancil, Theodore Edward Vancil, Annette Lynn Vancil, Linda Vancil Morgan, and Elena Marie Ives; daughters-in-law, Connie Miller Vancil, Karen Waugh Vancil, and Kathy Fox Vancil; and son-in-law, Donald Ives. Lois had 11 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Lois was preceded in death by her parents; her sister, Clara Alma Evans; and by her brother, PFC Bernard Richard Polehn, who was killed in action in Luzon, Philippines in 1945. She was also preceded in death by her eldest grand-daughter and grandson-in-law, Michael and Kathryn Myers. There will be a graveside service at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 15, 2012, at Redland Pioneer Cemetery followed by a Memorial Service at 1:00 p.m. at Holman-Hankins-Bowker & Waud at 715 Seventh Street, Oregon City. Lois's son, Pastor Ted Vancil, will officiate.
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