Nola Mae Rottmayer

ROTTMAYER, Nola Mae (Age 68) - Nola Mae Rottmayer passed away peacefully at the Hospice House on March 8, 2015 after a brief illness. She was born Nola Mae Dudley on May 22, 1946 in Pleasant City, Ohio. As a child she experienced poverty, made worse when at the age of three, a high fever rendered her a lifetime epileptic. As a young girl, she was a gifted athlete, but finding no outlet to success there, she dreamed of marrying a college professor and having his children. Undeterred by the fact that in the 1960’s, poor girls with a serious brain illness did not marry above a certain station, she left home after graduating from high school and trained to be a secretary at the state manpower training center in Jackson, Ohio. She then set out for Columbus and found a job as a secretary at the Ohio State University. There she met a handsome young graduate student in philosophy, named William Rottmayer. They fell in love and were wed on March 17, 1968 in Cambridge, Ohio. They went to California so Bill could complete his PhD at Stanford, and they welcomed son David there. After Bill got a job at Eastern Washington University, the family moved to Cheney, and Nola gave birth to another son they named, Steven. Nola struggled cheerfully to raise her rambunctious boys. Her favorite things to do were spending time with her family and telling jokes. She was an excellent joke-teller, and people who knew her could not wait to hear her tell them a new one. Nola provided her family with the immeasurable gifts of perseverance and fortitude by the way she lived her life and fulfilled her dreams in the face of insurmountable odds. Nola was preceded in death by her parents, Rolland Adair Dudley and Wanda Dudley; sister, Charlotte and brother, Almer “Jake” (Mollie); and son, Kenneth Eugene. She is survived by her husband Bill; her brother, Clarence “Bud” (Diana); and her sister, Carol Bowers; and David (Jean) and Steven (Kerry). A funeral service will be held at RIPLINGER FUNERAL HOME 4305 N DIVISION SPOKANE, WA on Saturday, March 21, 2015 beginning at 11:30AM. Procession will follow at 1:00PM to Spokane Memorial Gardens. Donations in her name may go to the First Church of the Nazarene in Spokane or to Hospice of Spokane.