Obituary
Of Jean Ellen (Plucker) Straatmeyer
November 25, 1938 – April 23, 2021
On a dark November winter evening in 1938 in an upstairs room of the South Dakota farmhouse, Jean Ellen Plucker was born. How many times did we hear the story that Aunt Alma had to sleep with her the first night to keep her warm after she helped with the delivery? Her cries were a thrill to her brother Robert (10) and Dorothy (12), but especially her dad, since Jean was a surprise baby and her mom was older. She grew up adored and babied. She didn’t do much work on the farm, and often got in the way. The baby lambs followed her around each spring and sometimes the cranky goose chased her.
One Sunday in 1956 a young man from Lennox, who was headed to Dubuque Seminary in the fall, came to Germantown Church as a guest speaker. Jean batted her eyelashes and the rest is history. Jean married H. Gene Straatmeyer on June 11, 1957 when she was still 18 years old. Sadly, on the night of their wedding rehearsal, Jean’s grandfather on her dad’s side died. As news of his death arrived at the church, it turned out that Gene’s family was also related to Jean’s grandfather. The couple shared the same great-great grandparents: Jurjen Roelf and Swaantzje Bossman, a testament to the tight-knit German community that settled near Lennox from Ostfriesland Germany in the 1800s. They decided to proceed with the wedding, but to forgo their honeymoon in order to stay for the funeral.
Jean and Gene moved to their first rural German church, Stateline Presbyterian Church, near Rock Rapids, South Dakota. The church, manse and cemetery sat in a cornfield in the country, many miles from town. Luckily Jean had a sewing machine so that besides doing her preacher wife duties, her days were filled with sewing clothes for all of the family members. Their first born, Cynthia Jean, arrived on April 25, 1959, the same year that Gene graduated from Seminary. Sandra Jean arrived April 21, 1961.
In 1963 Gene received a call from Colfax Center Presbyterian Church, another German country church near Holland, Iowa. It was in this church that Jean came into her own as a strong preacher’s wife. She had a beautiful voice and sang at all of the weddings and funerals. She sang in the choir. She taught Sunday School and Bible School music. She made desserts for each session meeting. She dressed perfectly and pinched her kids so that they would behave and look perfect in church. One summer she and Gene left the girls with grandparents in Lennox and went to Mississippi to register blacks for the vote. After they were chased by the KKK and had to take cover in the safety of a bar all night long, they decided that henceforth Jean would stay home with the girls. They wanted to make sure the girls would at least have one living parent. That experience solidified her life-long stance for social justice.
That decade also brought “The Sound of Music”. Jean was so enamored, she scraped enough money together to buy a ukulele. She learned to play it and in no time, the family became the Straatmeyer Family Singers, singing for all sorts of church events and special music. A lot of practice time was driving in the car.
No longer going to Mississippi, Jean sometimes joined the work parties and mission trips to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Gene and Jean felt strongly that they should do something to help children growing up in poverty. They requested to adopt an Indian baby. Much to their surprise the adoption agency called and said they had a perfect baby boy, but of German descent. They took one look at Michael Gene and it was love at first sight. Michael was born on April 19, 1965 and joined the family 3 days later. He brought much joy, laughter, adoration and some jealousy to is older sisters, Cindee and Sandee.
In 1971 Gene accepted a call to First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was an adventure. They sold most of their belongings, packed up the family in an LTD Ford, and headed up the Alcan Highway. That was a LONG 7 days in the car! But what a change. This was the first time Jean lived in a town, as well as the first time the manse was not next to the church. It was the first community that didn’t share the German culture. Instead the church was bilingual English/Iñupiaq. When Jean started using her perfected preacher’s wife skills, the session started feeling guilty that she was bringing desserts, so they started bringing their own. She joined the choir, but wasn’t asked to sing at weddings and funerals. Truth was, times had changed. It was the 70s and women didn’t work at home anymore. She was no longer expected to work alongside her husband. Jean’s world shifted.
Jean got her first for pay job at the Presbyterian Hospitality House, a boarding home for mostly Iñupiat girls going to high school in Fairbanks. She liked her job, but that meant that she had to give up cooking dinner. Cindee took over that job and the food got a lot better. Sandee took over the cleaning and the house was cleaner. Mike, the baby, didn’t get a job. When Gene suggested to Jean that she get her degree in social work, Jean fought the idea. It really wasn’t her goal to become a working woman. In the end, she graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a BS in Sociology and got her first job at the Literacy Council teaching adults to read. It was rewarding work.
In 1978 Gene uprooted the family to accept a position as seminary faculty at the University of Dubuque, Iowa, his alma mater. It was back to their roots. U.D. was the same school that Jean’s father graduated from and Jean’s mother got a nursing degree from; the same seminary that all of her uncles graduated from. However, she was not happy and neither were the kids: they did not want to leave Alaska. It just felt wrong. This was the first time Jean was not a preacher’s wife and she was not living in a manse. She and Gene purchased their first house, but to do so they needed a second income. Jean easily got a job using her degree inspecting low income houses. She wrote grants and oversaw the work of repairing the homes. Cindee and Sandee left home and Mike, in high school, learned to cook. This was the 9 to 5 era where she banked her money and they felt very well-off.
In 1986 Gene accepted a position at Cook Christian Training School in Tempe, Arizona. Jean got a job working for a renewable energy company. Jean learned to swim, she started scrapbooking, she continued singing in the church choir, she began her love of bike riding. She loved Arizona. It was here that having her own jobs/identity broadened her perspective on service and she was truly happy with life in general. She always wanted to return to Arizona, but never got a chance.
In 1991 Gene accepted a call to return to Alaska at First Presbyterian Church of Wasilla. It was in Wasilla that Jean finally had a job that truly connected her calling for service with her profession. She felt just as fulfilled as her preacher’s wife dream job—maybe more. She was the Director for the Valley Women’s Resource Center, where she helped low income and often abused women, often with the goal of helping them get jobs through education, improved personal appearance, and other efforts to improve self-esteem. In Wasilla she also served on the Habitat for Humanity board and was in charge of at least one home build. Jean spent a year organizing and picketing the XXX Video store on the street where she lived---all winter and all summer, every Saturday until finally the Video store closed.
Because Gene developed a severe allergy to glacier dust, the doctor suggested they retire to a beach somewhere where the air would be clean and moist. They chose Crystal Beach, TX. Jean said she’d be happy anywhere as long as she had a sewing machine.
It wasn’t long after retirement that they applied to be missionaries in Malawi, Africa. Again, Jean rose to her preacher’s wife status with perfection. She called her sister, who still went to Germantown Church and got that church to donate and send the first treadle sewing machine all the
way to Africa. Jean started sewing classes and soon the women there began having their own spending money and independence. She was so loved in Africa.
After returning, Jean started writing children’s books to continue raising money for the orphaned children in Malawi. You can still find those books on Amazon: Tales of an African Dog; Tales of an African Dog in Alaska; Tales of an African Dog in Texas.
Jean and Gene took one last major trip together to Ostfriesland, Germany where they lived for one summer and traced their ancestors. They made new friends, walked through many cemeteries and practiced the low German dialect they had learned as children, but were forbidden to use during the World War II era.
Sadly, in her last years of life, she basically went to prison with Gene, who was sentenced to 10 years for sexual misconduct with his granddaughters. She was so angry, but in reality after spending over 60 years with him, could not justify abandoning him. She wrote to him every day and talked to him on the phone every other day. She drove 200 miles once a month to visit him. When he died February 22, 2020, Jean lost her confidant and best friend. She was so sad.
And then Jean became a statistic. Long time partners often die within a year of each other. Most people only last 3 months in an assisted living facility. Her heart gave out on April 23, 2021.
She and Gene will be returned to the Germantown Presbyterian Church Cemetery just ¼ mile down the road from Jean’s old farmhouse where she was born and where many of their relatives have been laid to rest over the years.
Jean is survived by daughter, Cynthia Karns, son-in-law Curtis, of Anchorage, AK; her son, Michael Straatmeyer, of Crystal Beach, TX; her sister, Dorothy Plucker (95), of Sioux Falls, SD; and her brother Robert Plucker (93), of Haines, AK. She had 9 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her daughter, Sandra McCubbin and her husband Henry Gene Straatmeyer.
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