Gloria Kaemmer

Friday, October 26, 2018

Gloria Kaemmer passed away at age 88 on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018. She was a resident of The Gardens at Newbury Court in Concord, Mass.

Gloria grew up in Ohio and graduated from Mount Union College, where upon she embarked on a life of service and adventure. She taught English at the Iai Academy in Hakodate, Japan, for seven years.

She met her husband John in graduate school at Scarritt College, and after five years of long-distance correspondence she flew from Japan to Angola where they were married in December 1960.

They raised their three children -- Greta, David and Marta -- in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), returning to the U.S. permanently in 1973.

Gloria then taught AP English at Greencastle High School in Indiana, where she was loved and feared in equal measure. Nobody taught by her will ever end a sentence with a preposition without a vague sense of trepidation.

She and John traveled extensively in their spare time and after they retired in 1994, when they also moved to Seattle. She was active in church choirs throughout her life with a beautiful strong soprano voice and deft hands at the piano.

In 2010 she and John moved to Concord to be closer to their kids, and John died in January 2011. Gloria had a formidable presence tempered by a wonderful sense of humor and an ability for self-reflection and growth.

She was very much loved and will be greatly missed by her children, grandchildren Carolyn, Hannah and Graham, daughter-in-law Althea, and son-in-law Alex.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday, Nov. 18 at 4:30 p.m. in Duvall Chapel at Newbury Court, 80 Deaconess Rd., Concord, Mass.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in her name to the Heifer Project International (https://fundraise.heifer.org/GloriaKaemmer) or to the Alzheimer's Association, 309 Waverley Oaks Rd., Waltham, MA 02452 (www.alz.org).

To share a remembrance or to send a condolence in Gloria's online guestbook, please visit www.DeeFuneralHome.com.