Cora "Corky" Georgia Buckwalter

Cora Georgia “Corky” Buckwalter, 86, of Mt. Carroll, IL, died early Tuesday morning, December 28, at Good Samaritan Nursing Home in Mt. Carroll following a six-month fight against breast cancer.
Funeral services will be held 11:00 a.m., Friday, December 31, 2010, at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mt. Carroll with a one hour visitation prior (10:00) to the service. Pastor Elizabeth Mascal of the First Evangelical Lutheran Church will officiate. Cora’s body has been donated for scientific research at the University of Iowa Medical School and burial of her cremains will be conducted by the family at a later date at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mt. Carroll.
Cora was born February 22, 1924, in Okabena, Minnesota, the sixth of 11 children of Gustav and Hanna (Stumpf) Seydel. She was proud to tell relatives and friends that she was born on George Washington’s birthday and the doctor who delivered her made an agreement with her cash-short parents that if he could name her after his childless wife, Cora, and for George Washington, there would be no charge for the delivery.
Cora is a 1942 graduate of Okabena (MN) High School and moved shortly after graduation to St. Paul/Minneapolis and later to Earlville, IL, to work in a hemp mill making rope for the war effort. There, she met her future husband, Kenneth Alva Buckwalter, whom she married March 20, 1946, in Dixon. Their first home was in Lanark where his family lived. They later moved to Mt. Carroll in 1955. The couple had four children. In addition to raising her family, Cora worked for Grimm’s Dairy, Eaton Corporation, Carrollton Inn, Shaw’s IGA and Brick Street Market. She loved working and also enjoyed gardening, cooking, canning, bowling and raising flowers, particularly a wide variety of cactus, some of which she inherited from her father who brought them to Minnesota from Arizona. One of the greatest joys in her life was watching her grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow and experience the joys of life.
Cora is survived by three daughters, Nancy (Jonathan) Whitney, of Thomson, Connie (Wayne) Michael, of Freeport, and Debbie (Thomas) Kamper, of Thomson, seven grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren, four sisters, Emilia Law, of Montoursville, PA, Olive Volk, of Bingham Lake, MN, Esther (Ray) Busse, of Appleton, MN, and Virginia (Martin) Krause, of Fairmont, MN, a sister-in-law, Joyce Seydel, Paullina, IA, and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband, her son Geary, parents, four brothers and two sisters. Memorials in her name may be given to the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mt. Carroll.