- Date Of Birth: March 30, 1921
- Date Of Death: August 8, 2017
- State: Colorado
For Lucille Barenberg, it was all about the family. She was the first of four children born to Anna and William Riepl on a farm in Herndon, Kansas (March 30, 1921). Her three siblings, Marcella, Don, and Larry, were always very dear to her. She graduated from St. Mary’s High School in 1939 and then made the move to Denver. She, along with her lifelong friend Aurelia, was part of the hard-working cohort who earned their degrees at St. Anthony Nursing School in the 1940s. Always attuned to children, Lucille began her career as a pediatric nurse at Denver’s Children’s Hospital.
On Valentine’s Day, 1950, she married her Navy sailor Lester (d. 2003). Six children, Cynthia (Glenn), Galen, Patrick, Marissa (Bob), Martel, and Mary were their lively harvest. Those children then gave her the nine grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren with whom she shared her love and attention, and every birthday and holiday, throughout her long life.
Lucille and Lester cherished their Catholic faith, and were active and generous parishioners at St. James and Cure d’Ars in their early years and, after building an acreage home in eastern Aurora in the 1970s, at St. Pius X. The children grew up riding horses and helping on the beloved wheat farm in Bennett, Colorado.
You can take the girl out of the country, but not the country out of the girl. She made friends and kept them, maintaining her prolific letters and cards right up through the last difficult year of her life.
