Elizabeth Lamb Wegener

WEGENER, ELIZABETH LAMB (AKA BONNIE, GRAMI, LIZ, BETTA)MADISON-Elizabeth (born Evanston, IL 03/26/21) was clear-sighted, fun loving, and blessed with innate good taste. She had the ingredients of a brilliant charmer bringing everyone, from small children to fierce academics and even fiercer street-gang members to swamps full of snakes, under her spell. She was intellectually and physically brave. Elizabeth loved to drive fast. She found joy steering back roads governed only by intuition and superior motoring skills. She may have accidentally taught her daughters how to sneak the family car out of the driveway. Her driving took her out of Chicago into the surrounding prairie lands and beyond. Her mother (Agnes Nelson Lamb) took Elizabeth, her older brother Jimmy (James Lamb) and younger sister (Mary Hoaglund Vedder) camping. She learned her woodcraft and camp lore from her father, George Newton Lamb. Elizabeth was an excellent shot and damp campfires lit from the pure force of her will, or so her three daughters say. If she got her adventuring spirit from her father, mother Agnes Nelson's family provided a base for her progressive political life. Her grandfather, John Mandt Nelson was Superintendent of Dane County Wisconsin schools and elected 14 times to the U.S. House of Representatives. While her grandmother (Thea Johanna Stonedahl) used her Washington platform to become a prominent Suffragist. Elizabeth was president of her local League of Women Voters chapter, she marched for civil rights, and was a champion for equality. She said her first marriage to Willard Meier was too early and for the wrong reasons. But she found a soul-mate in flight-surgeon Alfred A Schiller (d.1955) whom she married in 1947, participating in the activity known as the baby boom. Paula Caroline Schiller and Julie Johanna Schiller were taken camping from their respective starts. Pre-car seats and seatbelts, the Schillers improvised and little Julie travelled in a wooden box wedged securely in the back seat. Alfred died suddenly in San Francisco where he had flown to attend a medical conference. Elizabeth had taken her daughters on one of those cross-country road trips planning to pick-up Alfred for the drive home. Elizabeth drove home alone, through the night, with seven-year-old Paula and three-year-old Julie asleep in their backseat nests.  Elizabeth, stricken but resolute, found new hope in Charles Wegener, PhD. d 2002 whom she married and with whom added a third daughter into the new family. Amy Elizabeth Wegener (Noble) took up the third space in the back seat. The summer camping and road trips continued but then gave way to the summer farm. When Charles and Elizabeth bought the “worst farm in Iowa County,” Charles, a philosophy professor and urban gentleman, was thrown into country life at the deep end. It wasn’t long before he was wearing jeans and putting his considerable mind and design ingenuity to practical work on the ground. Elizabeth taught for 20 years in a public school on the South Side of Chicago. In the 1970’s she took a sabbatical and travelled the United States coast to coast alone in a little motor home because she wanted to explore her inner landscape on her own terms. She experimented with different modes of healing herself and others. It was a pilgrimage with no pre-set route. She discovered her wisdom and her ability to connect with people was valued and she became a qualified therapist. She was also a generous patron of the arts and environmental causes. Elizabeth’s ability to connect with people turned friends and neighbors into family. Her friends were for life. Her Circle was both wide and deep. Although she sometimes lamented outliving her friends, ten years in her lofty Capital Lakes apartment saw her making dear new old friends. Marriage has added three sons-in-law; Charles J Risch; Bruce J Noble; and Patrick T.F. Gowans): three grandsons, Max William Schiller Risch; James Thomas Risch; Andrew Charles David Noble; and granddaughter-in-law Sonia Rupcic. Elizabeth counts the Lama family: Monica, Lewis, Francesco, Antonio and Marco as adoptees. Many meals, bottles of wine, support and joie de vivre were shared in the later years of her life. Goodbye Mother, Grami. Elizabeth, Betta. You are removed from our eyes but never from our hearts. “Now go have some fun!”  A Remembrance Celebration will be held at CAPITAL LAKES, 110 S. Henry Street, Madison, WI. on Tuesday, May 29 from 4:30 to 6:30. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to Agrace Hospice Foundation, 5395 E. Cheryl Pkwy, Madison, WI 53711 or to “Healing House”, Madison-Area Urban Ministry, 2115 S. Park St. Madison, WI 53713. The family wishes to extend their gratitude to Agrace HospiceCare, Inc. for their support in her final days. Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.