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Archive for: K

Terrance John Kuhn

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Terrance John Kuhn was born December 27, 1945. He was from Napoleon, North Dakota.  He passed away on September 20, 2017 in Waverly, Nebraska.



Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.

Shirley Jean Kruntorad

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Kruntorad, Shirley Jean (84), October 1936 – April 2021

Shirley J. Dolezal Kruntorad died peacefully on April 18, 2021. She was preceded in death by parents, Marie and George Dolezal. She is survived by daughters, Debra Hennings (Steve) and Gayle Belt (Andy Aitken); grandchildren, Christopher Hennings and Hanna Belt; great grandson Davis Hennings; brother, Robert Dolezal (Connie); niece Denise Stevens and nephew Daniel Dolezal.

A Memorial Service to celebrate her life will be held graveside at Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Omaha, Nebraska in the near future.

To leave a condolence please use the form below.



Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.

Donna Jo (Baldwin) Klopfenstein

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Donna Jo Klopfenstein, of Seward NE, died peacefully on Saturday, April 17, 2021 as her son, Todd sang her favorite gospel songs to her. She was residing at Tabitha’s Journey House in Lincoln, NE, under the loving care of the staff at Journey House as well as HoriSun Hospice. She was 81.

Donna was born on September 29, 1939, to Ralph and Wilma (Steele) Baldwin in Liberty Center, OH. Donna was one of three daughters, Anneita (Bair) and Jan (Lauber). She attended school in Ohio and on December 21, 1958, she married Terry Klopfenstein. Together they had five children, Tim, Ty, Michelle, Todd, and Melissa. They moved to Nebraska in 1965. Donna was a stay-at-home mom, worked at LPS as a paraprofessional, and was a foster parent to many children. Terry and Donna were divorced in 1997.

During her retirement, Donna found a new passion, being a Foster Grandparent for the City of Lincoln and later in Seward. There she would volunteer in classrooms to be a grandmother, a role she cherished.

Donna is survived by her children, Tim and Darla (Knudson) Klopfenstein of Kansas City, MO. Ty Klopfenstein of Mesa, AZ. Michelle and Tony Singleton of Beaver Crossing, NE. Todd and Kelli (Meyer) Klopfenstein of Seward, NE. Melissa and Darin Meyer of Milford, NE, 19 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren. She also has five nieces and a nephew, and numerous great nieces and nephews.

Donna is preceded in death by her parents, Ralph and Wilma, her sister Anneita, brother Joey, and granddaughter, Sarah.

A private graveside service will be held at Faith Lutheran East Cemetery, Seward, NE.

Memorial donations may be made to HoriSun Hospice Community Foundation or Faith Lutheran Church Cemetery. Cards may be sent to Melissa Meyer in care of Aspen Cremation Service, 4822 Cleveland Ave., Lincoln, NE 68504.

For condolences, please use the form below.



Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.

Patricia Anne Keifer

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Patricia Anne Keifer

May 4th, 1947-March 29th, 2021

Patricia Anne (Hoffner) Keifer, of Lincoln, Nebraska, passed away on March 29, 2021 in Lincoln. Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she is the daughter of Donald and Dorothy (Tait) Hoffner. She graduated from Northwestern Lehigh High School in New Tripoli, PA, in 1965.

Pat was married to Richard Keifer from November 1, 1975, until his death in 1998. Together they traveled the country as over the road truck drivers. They made a home in Bennet, Nebraska, where they raised three children. Donald, Edward, and Katie. As Richard continued driving and providing, Pat continued her driving career behind a bus, for Good Life Tour and Travel and Palmyra-Bennet Public Schools. She found great joy in transporting children to school and events, and even adults to Cornhusker Football home games.

She had many hobbies throughout her life, but some of her most recent include embroidering, birdwatching, and gardening.  She loved to ‘create’. She had a green thumb in the garden and many at Southlake Village knew she could bring any plant back to life. She was often referred to as the plant lady.  She loved her children and grandchildren, with all her heart and showered them with many types of sewing and embroidering gifts.

Pat is proceeded in death by her husband, Richard, her parents, Donald and Dorothy Hoffner, and Stepfather, George Folk.

She is survived by her children: Donald Keifer of Omaha, Edward Keifer and his wife Nicole of Lincoln, and Katie Keifer of Humboldt, five grandchildren, Austin, Lillyn, Emilyn, and Carson Keifer and Brooklyn Blunt. Additionally, she is survived by her sister Mary Cressman and her husband Lawrence of Macungie PA, and her brothers John Hoffner and his wife Cheryl of New Tripoli, PA, and Tom Hoffner and his wife Sally of Slatington, PA.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to: The Sunken Gardens in Lincoln, Nebraska, in her name. For convenience, the following link can be used, https://www.lincolnparks.org/donation-pages/general-donation.html and then direct the donation to Sunken Gardens or mail to: Lincoln Parks Foundation, 3131 O St, Suite 301, Lincoln, NE 68508.

A celebration of life service will be held at a later date.

To leave a condolence please use the form below.



Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.

Mervlyn Diana (Watkins) Krausnick

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Mervlyn Diana (Watkins) Krausnick, of Lincoln, died Tuesday, March 2 at the age of 76.
Merv (as she was known to her friends) was born May 23, 1944 in Raleigh, North Carolina to
Deal and Frances (Dunn) Watkins. As a girl she loved playing “Davey Crockett” in the woods with
her older brother Butch, and in high school drove a school bus for Raleigh Public Schools (a skill
that she would call upon later in life). She left Raleigh to attend college at Appalachian State
Teachers College (now Appalachian State University) in Boone, North Carolina, where she
earned a B.S. in Business Education.

After a year of teaching high school, Merv’s desire to further her education (but mostly to
indulge her sense of adventure) had her driving across the Great Plains to attend graduate
school at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. On that drive she encountered her
first Midwestern thunderstorm rolling across the wheat fields of Kansas; it was a storm she never
forgot. In Colorado she met Kenneth, her future husband and father of her three children. As a
young couple Merv and Kenneth lived in Rapid City, South Dakota, where they witnessed the
flood of 1972. After a brief stay in McCook, Nebraska, Merv and her family settled in Imperial in
1973, where she spent the next 22 years.

A devoted mother and homemaker, Merv took great pride in keeping an immaculate home
for her family to enjoy. It was the rare speck of dust, furniture scratch, chip of paint, or water spot
that escaped her notice. As wife to a large animal veterinarian and mother to three active kids,
she elevated cleaning and the domestic arts to High Art; there was nary a stain they could
produce that she could not remove. It was one of many ways she expressed her deep love for
her family.

In her middle years, when she managed to find some free time, Merv enjoyed playing
cards, softball, bowling, and being ornery. Many happy hours were spent with her ‘Happy
Hookers’ bowling league friends, where despite her strange form she became a pretty decent
bowler, even winning a couple of ‘Mother-Son’ regional bowling tournaments with her son (once
the organizers realized ‘Merv’ wasn’t a man’s name).

Merv’s greatest joy was always her children, and one would be hard pressed to find a
more devoted mother. Unfailingly supportive (despite her exactingly high standards), Merv rarely
missed a game, concert, play, or other event in which her kids participated. The number of Girl
Scout cookie boxes distributed from her garage was legion. She especially enjoyed coaching and
supporting her daughters’ softball teams. When the team needed new uniforms and the city
wouldn’t supply them, Merv, with her dear friend Darla Cook, determined to raise the money
themselves, which they did. She loved that the team’s mascot was ‘the Rebels,’ because Merv
was always and ever a rebel at heart, and not a woman easily deterred.

She was also full of love and mischief. Her home became a place where her children’s
friends naturally gathered, because they felt welcome and free to be themselves. Easy to talk to
and lots of fun, Merv was a kind of surrogate mom for many kids; a source of support for those
navigating the sometimes difficult path to adulthood. There are also rumors that she may have
been involved in various schemes of good-natured (but slightly naughty) mischief carried out by
the young people who confided in her, but these rumors can be neither confirmed nor denied.
When she found herself with only one child left at home, Merv re-entered the workforce
and once again became a bus driver, now for Imperial Public Schools. She braved the sometimes
treacherous country roads because she so loved seeing and getting to know the kids on her
route. With a toughness that characterized her whole life, she took a second job working the
graveyard shift at the all-night T-Junction truck stop. It was a job she loved, not for the work, but
for the people she got to know and conversations she got to have. Many high school kids would
swing by T-Junction on the weekend to have a late night chat with Merv.

After her divorce in 1995, Merv left Imperial and moved to Lincoln, to be near her children
and to begin a new adventure. After going back to school for a short time, she landed a job with
the Nebraska Legislature as an Assistant Statute Technician in 1996, where she enjoyed
correcting people’s grammar for the next 15 years. When not working, Merv’s greatest pleasure
came from spending time with her grandchildren. She loved nothing more. She retired from the
State of Nebraska in 2011, when her worsening Multiple Sclerosis no longer allowed her to work.
Though over time her body failed her, she never lost the fierce independent spirit, toughness, and
stubborn streak that characterized her entire life. Nor did her inner rebel disappear, as displayed
when she staged an escape from her nursing home in her power wheelchair when nobody was
looking, because she wanted to go get coffee (though the sweet taste of freedom was her true
desire). She also never lost her heart for young people, becoming a beloved friend and
conversation partner to the nursing home staff that cared for her so well in her later years.

As we all are, Merv was a mixed bag of virtue and vice, of wisdom and folly, of strengths
and weaknesses. But she will be most remembered for her unflinching devotion to her family, for
her love for young people, for her sense of fun and mischief, for being able to “talk to a fencepost”
(as she put it), and for facing life’s challenges with strength, courage, and independence. She will
be greatly missed.

Mervlyn is survived by her daughters Teresa Gray of Lincoln, Dixie Robertson (Randy) of
Kansas City, son Kevin Krausnick (Dorene) of Lincoln, and nine grandchildren: Ashley and
Danielle Gray; Anna, Elizabeth, Rachel, and Nathan Robertson; and Audrey, Lewis, and Wesley
Krausnick. Mervlyn was preceded in death by her parents and brother. A private memorial
service will be held at a later date.

To leave a condolence please use the form below.



Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.