GDEN — Gwendolyn Jane Plotner was born Dec. 31, 1932, in Ogden, the only child of Glenn Hiser and Beulah Jane McPherren Hiser. She died peacefully at Willow Lake Place, Indianapolis, on Sunday (Sept. 9, 2018) after becoming a resident there July 30, 2018.
As a young girl, she was an accomplished pianist who won several competitions in Champaign County. After graduating from Ogden High School, she attended Illinois Commercial College. On Oct. 28, 1951, with his dad’s legal permission, she married her childhood sweetheart, David Lynn Plotner. David proudly served in the Illinois National Guard, was deployed during the Korean War, and he was later stationed in Santa Maria, Calif., where they lived together and she also worked at an Army base. After returning to Ogden, they lived in and later purchased the house that her grandfather had built in 1908 for her family.
Gwendolyn retired from Carle Clinic, where
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she was an X-ray transcriptionist for more than 37 years. She quite successfully transitioned from dictaphone recordings and typewriters to utilizing IBM personal computers and networked printers. She became computer literate, enjoyed mentoring and training others and was a very hardworking, loyal employee. Gwendolyn especially enjoyed working with Dr. Cesare Gianturco, who, after he retired from Carle Clinic, moved to Houston, Texas, to conduct research at MD Anderson Cancer Center. And Dr. George Miller and Dr. Richard Taylor, who were subsequently Radiology Department heads, were also among those fond memories of her long career at Carle. At home, she learned and loved to use AOL Mail to communicate with friends and family members.
Always interested in travel, she and David, who was an avid and very talented photographer his entire life, enjoyed countless trips and international travels capturing stunning memories along the way.Gwendolyn and David especially
enjoyed several tours with Judy Fraser of WCIA and her husband as their guides. She was a member of United Methodist Church.
Gwendolyn and David celebrated 62 years of marriage in 2013. Despite her own early battle with cancer, and helping David fully recover from cancer and later a stroke-like incapacity, she never lost her enthusiasm for life. Gwendolyn was preceded in death by her parents and her husband. David died on Father’s Day in 2014. She began developing signs of Alzheimer’s during 2012 and became a resident at Amber Glen Alzheimer’s Special Care Center in Urbana in August 2014.
Gwendolyn is survived by her two sons, Gregory (Virginia) Plotner of Houston and Eric Plotner of Minneapolis; grandchildren, Nickolas (Kate) in Kentucky, Kyle (Julie) Key in Georgia and Zachary and Emily Modis in Houston; two greatgranddaughters; and two great-grandsons.Visitation will be held Friday, Sept. 14, 2018, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at Freese Funeral Home, St. Joseph, with the funeral at 11 a.m. and burial immediately following in Stanton Friends Cemetery, north of St. Joseph.
In lieu of other expressions of sympathy, the family requests that memorial contributions be made in her name to the Alzheimer’s Association.
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