- Date Of Birth: May 26, 1929
- Date Of Death: February 2, 2018
- State: Idaho
Evelyn J (Guske) Zimmer, 88, of Moscow, ID died Friday evening, February 2, 2018, from the aftermath of a severe stroke in her home. Evelyn was never alone during the three weeks following her stroke as family, especially her beautiful daughters, and friends kept vigil. Deeply rooted in Palouse dirt, descended from the homesteading Guske Farm family of Lacrosse, WA, Evelyn was born in Colfax, WA on May 26, 1929 to Joseph and Tillie Guske. At the early age of seven, in 1937, she lost her mother to flu and pneumonia. Her father remarried a year later, and Veva, Joseph’s new wife became mother to Evelyn and her siblings. Evelyn married her high school sweetheart, Jack Zimmer, in 1949, when they moved to Colfax and operated the Top Notch Cafe together for a time before Jack embarked on a long career in the automobile business. Selling cars and bearing children, Evelyn and Jack labored adding ten more to the local Colfax population before an opportunity led them to Moscow and their own automobile dealership, Zimmer Motor Company. Tragically, her eleventh child, Joseph, was stillborn. Evelyn raised those ten, often troublemaking, children in Colfax and Moscow ensuring, along with Jack, that all ten graduated from high school and, as it happened, all ten graduated from the University of Idaho where she and Jack were honored by the University for that accomplishment. The near empty nest allowed Evelyn to work at Zimmer Motor Company as an assistant bookkeeper where she enjoyed the work and social interaction with customers. Evelyn suddenly lost her husband, Jack, in January 1989 as they planned for semi-retirement. Two weeks later, she also lost her father, Joseph. Veva, Evelyn’s second mother, died in 1996. Evelyn lived independently and quietly as she wanted. She loved having her large family all around her but enjoyed her time alone also. Her ‘old-school’ life taught her to dig in and work, to do what needed to be done, to live. Her gains in life gave her softness and her losses a harder edge.
