Obituary of Lucille Lawrence

Lucille Marie Otte Lawrence was born on November 3rd, 1939, in St. Joseph, Missouri. She grew up in St. Joseph and graduated from Lafayette High School in 1957. She then attended St. Joseph Junior College (now Missouri Western) and received an Associate’s Degree. After that she attended Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, MO, and received a BA with a minor in Art. She taught elementary school in St. Joseph for several years and then returned to Northwest to begin graduate school. It was there she met William D. Lawrence. They were united in marriage on August 12, 1967. To this union were born daughter Lisa S. Lawrence and son Adam B. Lawrence. After moving to Clarinda, Lucy was hired to teach English at South Page School in College Springs, IA. She taught for one semester and then became pregnant with Lisa. After this, Lucy decided to stay home to raise her family. During this time she had several side jobs that kept her busy. She ran a craft shop called Potpourri out of the family’s basement where she sold her own and other local artists’ wares. She made and sold puppets and had a traveling puppet show she would perform at birthday parties and events throughout Iowa and Northwest Missouri. She designed and created one of the Clarinda High School’s Cocky Cardinal Mascot costumes and one of her puppets even made a brief appearance on America’s Got Talent. She babysat for several families and loved those children as if they were her own. When the kids were old enough to go to school, Lucy continued her education at Northwest. She received a Masters in English and a minor in French, and began teaching English and French classes at Northwest. She later drove to the University of Nebraska Lincoln and taught English classes while also furthering her education. She completed her dissertation but stopped short of obtaining her PhD due to personal reasons. Even as recently as a few years ago she was taking law classes at Missouri Western in St. Joseph, MO. In the mid-eighties, while going to school, she became the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) director and was responsible for coordinating volunteers for community events such as the Glenn Miller Festival and the Page County Fair. She also helped establish the Youth Efforts in Service (YES) volunteer program for school age volunteers, and was instrumental in forming the SHARE Food program where you could get a package of food for $15 and 1 hour of volunteer work. Along with the CHS FFA class she helped establish the monthly Curbside Recycling program. Her office was at the Clarinda Treatment Complex for many years until the state stopped funding the program. She then formed and continued to run the Clarinda Area Volunteer (CAV) program out of her home. In recent years she had been coordinating the Clarinda Taxi and Page County Passengers (which takes people to appointments outside of Clarinda). One of Lucy’s favorite hobbies was bowling. She had been a member of many teams and developed many friendships over the years. While she enjoyed all kinds of bowling, her favorite was Nine-Pin No-Tap. After suffering a mini-stroke a few years ago, she wasn’t able to drive and she wasn’t able to bowl. She eventually was able to do both again, but she was more excited to be able to bowl than anything else. She was also a past member and president of PEO Chapter KH and served on the Clarinda Public Library Board. She and Bill were named Clarinda Chamber Citizens of the Year and Grand Marshalls of the CHS Homecoming Parade. Lucy also had a great love of animals. Growing up she had a pet skunk named Flower. Besides the family cats and dogs over the years, she also took in animals when their owners passed away or were unable to take care of them. She couldn’t bear the idea of them being put to sleep. She also took care of her grand-dogs when Lisa was away and still took care of friends’ animals when they went out of town, often letting them stay at home with her and Bill. Lucy was preceded in death by her mother Kathryn Stouffer Otte, sister Joyce Hankins, and her sisters-in-law Maxine Halligan, Joyce Groves, and Ramona Boyd, and brother-in-law David Lawrence. She is survived by her husband of fifty-three years Bill Lawrence, of Clarinda, IA; daughter Lisa Lawrence of South Daytona, FL; son Adam and wife Amy, and grandsons Andrew & Ryan Lawrence, of Clarinda, IA; sister Suzanne Sybert of St. Joseph, MO; nieces Amy Blonde of Kansas City, MO, Alyson Matt and daughter Gillian Matt of St. Joseph, MO, Debbie Eglich and husband Joe of Lee’s Summit, MO, and Tricia and husband Tom Brown, and daughter Taby Robinson of Simi Valley, CA; as well as many other family and friends. Lucy had a big heart and spent her life in education and volunteer work, trying to make the world a better place. She enjoyed meeting people and hearing their stories, and telling her own also. She loved her family more than anything. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her but her legacy will live on through her family, friends and anyone’s life that she touched.