Vivian Ione Uhl, 82, passed away July 23, 2015 at the home of her daughter Karen (Uhl) Perkins and family in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Vivian is survived by her children; Ed (Kathy) Uhl, Mike (Dixie) Uhl, Vicky (Jay, who passed March 9, 2015) Schrodt, Karen (Tommy) Perkins, Ruth (Bill) Darnell, 24 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren, as well as her 3 younger siblings and their spouses. Vivian was preceded in death by her husband Edward on May 16, 1995. Vivian was born November 6, 1932, in Greenbrier Township, Greene County, Iowa. She was the ninth of twelve children born to Reid and Bertha Taylor. Vivian was born and raised on a 120-acre family farm in central Iowa during the Great Depression and the rationing years of World War II. There was no indoor plumbing, until eventually they installed a spigot in the kitchen so they wouldn't have to go outside to get water. It snowed a lot in the wintertime causing them to tunnel through the snow to get to the barn and other outbuildings to tend the livestock. She told of using old barn wood as sleds and sliding from the peak of the barn, down the snow drifts, and out into the pasture. She slept in a common bed with her sisters in a lightly insulated bedroom upstairs, and in the wintertime there was frost on the top blanket when she awakened in the morning. She went to a two-room school house until her high school years. The local rural Methodist Church was her spiritual life. Vivian married Edward Gregory Uhl, an Engineering and ROTC student at Iowa State University, on November 2, 1951, in Ames, Iowa, just a couple days short of her 19th birthday. They first lived in very modest student housing. Following graduation from college, Ed was called to active duty in the United States Army. During Vivian's 12 years as a military spouse, she lived at 18 different addresses in Iowa, Alabama, Oklahoma, Germany, Kansas, and Colorado. The first 5 years were in a 34 foot trailor house that they pulled behind their 1950 Ford whenever they moved. After that they rented homes wherever they lived, until at the last Army post at Fort Carson, Colorado, they purchased their first and only home in 1964. They lived there less than a year before Ed was honorably discharged from the Army as a part of a reduction in force. They then rented it out for 30 years, until Vivian sold it following Ed's death. During the army years, children were born in Iowa, Alabama, and Colorado, including the 2nd child born a few months after Ed started a 16 month tour of duty in Korea. Vivian was again a student's wife for 3-1/2 years when Ed decided to attend Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, after his military career came to an end. This time she was raising four children on a limited income. Ed was ordained a Lutheran minister and was placed at Salem Lutheran Church in Lenexa, Kansas, after graduation. She was then a pastor's wife for thirteen years. During those seminary and pastorate years they moved five additional times. It was after moving to Kansas that their 5th child was born. They next moved to Lansing, KS, when Ed went to work for the U.S. Army at Fort Leavenworth as a civil service employee. All five children were eventually raised, married, and gone from the home. In 1995, Ed died at home after losing a five month battle with colon cancer. They had rented the same home for thirteen years; the longest Vivian had lived anywhere since she left the farm as a teenager. She was widowed at age 62. Vivian then purchased a home in Olathe, Kansas, and lived there for eighteen years until 2013 when her health had declined to the point that she chose to move into an assisted living facility. As her health continued to fail, her nursing needs increased, and she moved to a skilled nursing unit for a couple months until daughter Karen and her family graciously invited her to live her remaining life in their home. She eventually benefited from hospice care and peacefully passed from this life into the loving presence of her savior Jesus Christ. Vivian was first and always a loving mother and grandmother; and she was good at it. Children were always welcome at her home, where she spent endless hours playing games, reading books, and occasionally telling a story of when she was a little girl. She welcomed grandchildren spending the night or weekend with her. She was most comfortable as a home body, although she spent years as a devoted Sunday school teacher. She learned to live with much and with little, and with constant change. She raised five children to be responsible adults who love and nurture their own children, and she accomplished the task while the family was uprooted every few months or years to move to a new home, new schools, new church, new doctors, new everything, in a new town. She was the backbone of our family. Her life was book-ended with a very humble beginning and a humble ending, but filled with love and compassion in between. She never talked of a dramatic life-changing moment in time when she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior, but it was obvious in her life that He was resident in her heart, and she is with Him today.

Services

The visitation will take place Wednesday, July 29, 2015, from 5:00 - 8:00 PM at Amos Family Funeral Home 10901 Johnson Drive Shawnee, Kansas 66203. A Funeral service will take place 10:00 AM, Thursday, July 30, 2015 also at the funeral home. Burial will take place at Leavenworth National Cemetery.

Contributions

Memorial contributions in Vivian's name, may be made to Wounded Warriors Project.