Martha Catherine Wendland

Martha Catherine (Gerke) Wendland passed away on Sunday, October 25, 2015, at Shawnee Gardens nursing home after a decade’s long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Her eldest daughter was at her side to comfort her during her passing. Known as Catherine, she was born July 15, 1932 on a small farm near Booneville, Missouri, and was the youngest of 10 children. While growing up, Catherine attended a one-room school that had only 14 students, but learned the value of a good education and left the farm to attend high school in town. She stayed at a boarding house in Booneville with two of her brothers so that she could earn her high school diploma, something that was not taken for granted in rural areas during this time. After graduation, Catherine left the farm again, but this time to move to the big city. And it was on the bus ride to Kansas City that she met the love of her life, Eugene Wendland, the man she would marry and with whom she would lovingly raise four children. Catherine did so many things to help children; she was a Cub Scout den mother and volunteered much of her time at many school and community events. In 1984, Catherine was awarded the Louise Sublette award, recognizing her as the nation's best school lunch lady for that year. She enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, stamp collecting, and making dolls. She was one of the most inclusive, non-judgmental, and open minded people of her generation. At her husband's funeral, many former students from Clardy Elementary School, where Catherine was the school cafeteria manager for many years, came to show her their families, and to thank her for the small favors that meant so much to them as they struggled to get through the day. And she could laugh! Catherine’s laugh was contagious and joyful; it filled the room. Catherine was predeceased by her husband Eugene Wendland in 2005 and is survived by her four children, Carol Wendland Stasi of Bonner Springs, Kansas, Gene Wendland of Portland, Maine, Sharon Wendland Lacy of Fletcher, North Carolina, and Steve Wendland of Prairie Village, Kansas; eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.