Betty J. Gohl

Visitation for Betty Jeane Gohl nee Fuss will be held Monday, October 19, 2015 from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home, 201 N. Northwest Highway, Palatine.  The Visitation will continue Tuesday morning from 9:00 a.m. until the time of the Funeral Service, 10:00 a.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 200 N. Plum Grove Road, Palatine, IL 60067.  The Reverend Warren Schilf will officiate.  A luncheon will follow the Funeral Service in Fellowship Hall at Immanuel Lutheran Church.  The Interment, after the luncheon, will be held in Memory Gardens Cemetery, Arlington Heights.

Betty, a member of The American Legion Auxiliary, passed away on October 9, 2015.  She is survived by beloved husband of 63+ years Harold Gohl, daughters Jeane Gohl-Noice (Harry Noice), Jennifer Nelson (Bruce), grandsons Tim Noice (Renee) and Dan Noice (Brandy Koenig), and great granddaughters Natalia and Emma.  She felt like a mother to nephews Tom (Glenna), Jim and Rich (Kathy) Gohl.  She was preceded in death by her sister Maxine and brothers Kenneth and Franklin.

Betty was born April 25, 1926 on a farm in Ord, NE to parents Walter and Sophie Fuss.  On the farm she tended pigs and cows, and of the farm cats she enjoyed selecting the orange kitten from the litters, and this kitten would always be named Kitsy and would be dressed in doll clothes and ride around in a doll buggy.  She attended St. John’s Lutheran Church and School and grew strong in her faith in Christ.  She was inspired by the hymn “Hark, the Voice of Jesus Crying” to become a Lutheran school teacher by the words of the second verse:

“If you cannot speak like angels, If you cannot preach like Paul,

You can tell the love of Jesus, You can say He died for all.

If you cannot rouse the wicked with the judgements’ dread alarms,

You can lead the little children To the Savior’s waiting arms.”

After making this decision, she attended the rest of high school and college at Concordia Teacher’s College in Seward, NE and began her teaching career at Trinity Lutheran School in Danville, IL where she met her husband, Harold, whom she married in 1951.  A match made in heaven brought them together as Betty had accepted the teacher’s position in Danville after the call committee had misunderstood her request to be sent to Denver.  Following their December 30 wedding in Ord they lived in an apartment above the Gohl Grocery Store in Danville until 1958.  A career move by Harold led them to relocate to Richardson, TX in 1958. In 1972 Harold was transferred to the Chicago area and they made their home in Palatine, IL where they resided until 2014 when they moved to Summit, an independent living facility in Park Ridge.

Betty loved listening to music (she and Harold were supporters of radio station WFMT, subscribers to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and avid fans of the Northshore Concert Band), gardening (neighbors often fawned over the annual harvest which included not only tomatoes and cucumbers, but also cherries, which she made into amazing cherry crisp), sewing (she often would sew clothing for family members and herself, and her proudest achievement in sewing was when she hand-made Jennifer’s wedding gown) and baking cookies (nobody ever went hungry at the Gohl residence, and whenever she visited relatives, she would always arrive with a container of something freshly baked…usually her signature oatmeal chocolate chip cookies).  Betty’s passion was working with children, whether it was teaching kindergarten, first and second grade, teaching Sunday School (for 70 years) and VBS, or being the playground supervisor at Hunting Ridge School from 1975-2000.  She was active at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Palatine, and worked in the annex sorting clothing to sell for the Good Samaritan Ministries.  Betty will be remembered for her amazing, unconditional love.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Lutheran Church Charities, www.LutheranChurchCharities.org, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, www.bcrfcure.org , or the Northshore Concert Band, www.northshoreband.org.