Vivian J. Olson

Vivian J. Olson, 94, of Wakefield, NE, died on Sunday, September 25, 2022, at Providence Medical Center in Wayne, NE. Funeral services for Vivian will be held on Friday, October 7, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Wakefield; Pastor Jill Craig will be officiating. The visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m. at the church on Friday morning. Burial will be in the Wakefield Cemetery. Bressler – Munderloh – Smith Funeral Home of Wakefield is in charge of the arrangements. Memorials are suggested to the Evangelical Covenant Church, Camp Cedars, and Samaritans Purse. Vivian was born in Wakefield, Nebraska, April 18, 1928, to Melvin and Mary Lundin. She had four loving brothers, Eugene, Claire, Gordon, and Darold, and sister, Donna. She entered her eternal rest on September 25, 2022, at Providence Medical Center in Wayne, Nebraska. She graduated from Allen High School and had two years of Wayne Normal College before teaching country school for two years. She married the love of her life, Myron Olson, in 1948 and was the proud mother of twins Bruce and Betty and son, Rick. The young family lived on the family farm north of Wakefield for several years before moving into town. She was a lifelong member of Wakefield Covenant Church being baptized as an infant and later being confirmed. She loved her church and participated in a wide range of activities: Covenant Couples, teaching Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, leading the high school youth group with Myron, serving as a counselor at Covenant Cedars Bible Camp, and participating in Pioneer Club kids’ program where she would drive to the country and fend off farm dogs to pick up her precious cargo of children. With her own children and grandchildren in the big city of Chicago she had a number of Wakefield church and community children and grandchildren. She found creative ways to love and entertain them from egg hunts on her lawn followed by the Easter story, to tea parties, and many ready games pulled from her big “bread loaf” toy chest. She also thoroughly enjoyed volunteering to read with children in classrooms at Wakefield School. When Myron died suddenly in 1996 she made the courageous adjustment, like so many widows, of carrying on without her life partner. She immersed herself in many activities including painting, writing poetry, taking adventure trips with friends or son, Rick. One of her most meaningful involvements was being a hospice volunteer for twenty years. She loved people and wrote countless cards for various occasions. COVID troubled her greatly and she reached out to many with notes of encouragement. She deeply loved her family and knew each of them intimately. She prayed for each one daily and remembered them with a myriad of personal touches from tea parties to individual letters, special games, and trips to the ice cream machine whenever they visited her at her apartment at the Care Center. She was a woman of deep faith who had a strong personal relationship with her Savior. The margins of her Bible were heavily marked with notes of how the passages applied to her life. She courageously dealt with arthritic pain for a number of years. Her only request “God, let me be alive for as long as I’m living” was sovereignly answered with a very short final few hours. She was preceded in death by her parents, siblings, husband, Myron, son, Rick, and infant great-granddaughter, Sierra. She is survived by her son, Bruce (Debbie), daughter, Betty (Bob), six grandchildren and their spouses: Jeni Paredez (Robin), Philip Olson, (Heather), Erica Satterblom (Karl), Ingrid Olson, Christopher Olson (Abbie), and Laura Shoemaker (Andy), 22 loving great-grandchildren, cousin, Corrine Carlson, sisters-in-law Helen Kentner and Donna Lundin, cherished nieces and nephews, and countless friends who loved her deeply.