An Extraordinary Life: Nora Gilbert of Joliet lived life on her terms

Nora Gilbert of Joliet was an independent woman who doted on life’s adventures,

And yet if her daughter, Bettie Komar of Joliet, could emulate one of Nora’s traits, it would be her faith.

“And how much she relied on her faith,” Bettie said. “A lot of times, I did not understand it. I remember when Dad died. Dad’s favorite hymn was ‘How Great Thou Art.’ I was sitting with her [at the funeral] and she had a death grip on my hand, and her voice was wavering, but she would not stop singing it.”

A longtime and faithful member of First Lutheran Church in Joliet, Nora served her church with her voice, as well as with her hands, Nora used to sing with the adult choir and directed the youth choir. Nora also sang solos for weddings.

“She had a beautiful voice,” Bettie said.

Nora also belonged to the women’s guild (Women of the Evangelical Church of America), the altar guild (where she washed and ironed church lines, Bettie said) and served as church council treasurer.

In later years. Nora was the greeter at her church’s food pantry. Attending First Lutheran was a social as well as spiritual experience for Nora because she was so outgoing, Bettie said.

“When the Santa Cruz congregation began worshipping there, Mom was one of the first to sign up to take beginning Spanish lessons,” Bettie wrote in an email. “She’d taken it as an adult learner with Dad in night school years prior and looked forward to conversing with the Santa Cruz parishioners in their native tongue, just as they worked on their English and practiced with her.”

Nora socialized differently with her family than with her friends. With family, Nora would intersperse conversation with reading the newspaper or working a crossword puzzle, Bettie said. With friends, Nora gave all her attention and could recite complete conversation verbatim.

“She knew everybody’s grandchildren and what they were doing and who had great-grandchildren and where they had moved,” Bettie said. “She knew everybody’s life. It was amazing. Like her hairdresser. One of her favorite things was finding out what her son was up to in Michigan.”

Nora was the oldest of her three siblings and the last to pass away. Her family moved quite a bit when she was growing up. (It was the Depression, and they went where they could find work, Bettie said). It was her husband LLoyd job at the EJ&E Railroad that brought Nora to Joliet, Bettie said.

In fact, Llloyd bought a house on Catherine Street before relocating Nora.

“She lived in that house for 68 years,” Bettie said.

Nora and Lloyd traveled to New Orleans in 1958 with the Reserve Officers Association and talked about Preservation Hall and other parts of the trip for years.

“She went to London and Paris with her bosses one year, continuing her secretarial duties for a smelter as they did business overseas,” Bettie wrote. “And one of her favorite trips of all was to Ireland, where she and Dad took a weeklong tour.”

Nora worked for many years at Grate Signs in Joliet. A quick learner, Nora later worked various jobs for ManPower.

“She had to learn how to use a computer when doing a records job for the hospital, and was a bit nervous about that undertaking,” Bettie wrote.

But Nora quickly learned to use a computer, which worked well when ManPower sent her to Amoco.

“Now she worried about learning to work a Mac, as opposed to a PC,” Bettie wrote. “But in no time at all, [she] was up and running, making notations for CAD documents. ... When she ‘retired’ at age 75, they threw her a retirement party, complete with lunch, flowers, cake and gifts.”

Like her own mother before her, Nora was an excellent cook, Bettie said. In fact, unless Nora had a large lunch when out with friends, she always cooked a big dinner, from scratch, up to the end of her life, Bettie said.

“Every meal had to have a meat, a starch and two vegetables,” Bettie said. “She was still cutting recipes out of the Tribune, and we’d have to buy a certain vinegar just for the recipe she had. I’d say, ‘Mom, you have several different kinds of vinegar here,’ and she’d say, ‘Well, the recipes all call for different kinds of vinegar.’ ”

Even at 95, Nora still cooked and baked for fellowship hour at her church, Bettie said.

“She started using mixes the last five to 10 years, but she was still baking,” Bettie said.

Nora also still was canning.

“I’ve given canning jars away three times now. I keep finding them,” Bettie said. “We found a box with them still I shrink wrap with only three taken out. There still [were] nine perfectly new canning jars she was going to use at some point.”

During Bettie’s childhood, Bettie’s friends envied the meals Nora made for her family.

“Mom was very inventive,” Bettie said. “She made popovers, souffles, chop suey, none of my friends had even heard of those. They were very meat and potatoes.”

Nora never lost her sense of adventure. With her daughter, Pamela Grath of Michigan, Nora enjoyed exploring the I&M Canal locks.

With her daughter, Deborah Wesley of Springfield, Nora went to Disney World and took her first trip on the “lazy river at Joliet’s Splash Station Waterpark at age 90.

With Bettie, Nora had lunch at Tall Grass in Lockport with The Woman’s Study Club of and had her first pedicure at age 95.

About three years ago, Nora failed to pass her driving test, and she took that loss of freedom hard, especially since she could (and did) still live alone with her two cats, Percy and Miss Priss, Bettie said.

She also was a breast cancer survivor and had surgery for a tumor shortly before she died Sept. 5 at age 95. Nora, who had run errands that day, felt unusually tired and peacefully passed away in her sleep, Bettie said.

Bettie said she later learned the cause of death in older people who suddenly die is often listed as failure to thrive. So Bettie turned it into humor even her mother would have appreciated.

As Bettie quipped, “I could see her going to heaven with that paper in her hand saying, ‘See? This is what killed me. Failure to drive!’ ”

• Contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.