Teresa Lynn (Miller) Peterson, 66, of Lincoln, Nebraska died on August 15, 2026 after over a decade journey with young onset Alzheimer’s.

She was born February 16, 1960 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of Phillip and Shirley (Fulcher) Miller’s four children. Throughout her childhood, their family moved to Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, and eventually Lincoln, Nebraska. She attended College View Academy where she met and dated Norman Peterson throughout high school. They married on June 4, 1978 in the Kansas City area and had their four children there.

Teresa enjoyed telling many humorous stories of their family’s various pets including a raccoon named Baby Snooks and a tiny marmoset monkey named Skipper. As a kid, she attended auctions with her dad in Colorado, stirring a sense of nostalgia to the auctions she regularly brought her own kids to in Kansas. She loved crafting and quilting, which she learned from her mother-in-law, leading her to several years of teaching a variety of craft classes and running a craft store. Throughout the years, her passion for quilts grew as she became involved in her local quilt guild and eventually taught many how to quilt in both formal and informal quilting sessions.

She enjoyed serving her churches in Kansas and Tennessee creating weekly bulletins, leading youth classes and pathfinders, contributing to women’s ministries and social committees, and so much more. When there was a need, she provided the ideas and energy to help fill it, like when she gathered her area sewing friends to make choir robes for the nearby academy. Her passion for both church and local community combined when she had a large role in coordinating a 3-church Vacation Bible School. She hosted or contributed to many events for her hometown, the local church, her and her husband’s workplaces, and more, putting her creativity into decor and food presentation to make each event unique and special.

In her professional life, Teresa owned and managed hard-hat-liner and quilting businesses (while homeschooling her kids for a few years), worked for Adventist schools as a cook and administrative support where she loved mentoring young people, and managed tourist properties in national parks in California. She overhauled cafeterias in disarray in Kansas, California, and North Carolina, infusing new life into previously rundown, disorganized spaces. She left a positive impact everywhere she went, creating fun work memories with colleagues and providing her fierce advocacy and unwavering support for “kids” that weren’t her own.

Teresa is often remembered for being the life of the party with an ornery sense of humor, as well as a “can-do” attitude always itching to get something done. Even so, Teresa’s biggest pride and joy was always her children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren. As the family rapidly grew, she hosted her young grandkids for “Grandma Camp” and always engaged them in activities, walks, tickles, and jokes. Yearly family reunions and coordinated family pictures happened because of her. Even through the impact of Alzheimer’s, family remains her legacy.

The immediate loved ones carrying the memory of Teresa include her children Nathan, Nicholas, Trista, and Trina; sons- and daughters-in-love Sherri, Michaela, Matthew, and Daniel; grandchildren Alycia, Angelica, Rylie, Weston, Paisley, Ryder, Archer, Wylder, Emily, Tenley, Everly, Brylee, Ian, Oliver; great-grandchildren Declan, Aurora, Ayden; father Phillip and Martha, siblings and siblings-in-love Lee and Judy, Sherry and Virgil, Terri, Lori and Ernest; mother-in-love Valeta (“Sam”); along with beloved nieces and nephews, cherished friends, and many others.

Teresa is preceded in death by her husband Norman, mother Shirley, brother Robert, father-in-law Perry, and niece Catharine.

A Memorial Service to honor Teresa will be held on Saturday, August 29, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. at the Enterprise Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Enterprise, Kansas. The burial will follow at Mount Hope Cemetery. A reception will take place after the burial at the church fellowship hall.

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