- Date Of Birth: December 4, 1923
- Date Of Death: August 25, 2015
- State: Nebraska
Vida died Tuesday, Aug.
She was born Dec. 4, 1923, in Gregory County, South Dakota, to Henry and Bertha (Steffen) Seevers. Her family also resided on farms in the Plainview area and near Mission, South Dakota, before moving to Madison.
Vida was confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church in Madison. She was a 1941 graduate of Madison High School.
On Aug. 24, 1944, she married Ralph Sunderman in Madison. They were the parents of four children. They resided on a farm west of Madison until 1957, when they moved to Norfolk.
In later years, Vida attended Northeast Community College in Norfolk. She was a member of Christ Lutheran Church and the VFW Auxiliary.
Vida was employed as a seamstress. She sewed and altered clothing in her home and at the Style Shop in downtown Norfolk. From 1962 until May 1986, she worked in the sewing department at Norfolk Regional Center.
Vida continued to develop her interest in needlework and became a teacher, designer and author.
She taught crocheting and tatting classes at Northeast Community College for several years,
starting in 1979. She also designed needlework patterns and wrote articles for needlework magazines.
Vida wrote four needlework books: Tatting for Tomorrow; Dictionary of Abbreviations, Tatting
terms, Techniques and Tatted Alphabet; Tatted Snowflakes; and Decorative Tatting.
In 1995, Tatted Snowflakes was published by Dover Publications in New York. The book is sold throughout the United States and in foreign countries.
More than seventy of Vida’s needlework patterns and articles were published in national magazines, including Country Christmas Crochet, Country Handcrafts, Crochet Basket, Crochet Digest, Crochet Home, Crochet Thread, Crochet World, Farm Wife News, Hooked on Crochet, McCall’s Crochet, McCall’s Christmas Knit and Crochet, Needle & Craft, Needlecraft For Today, Needlecraft Shop, Red Heart by Popular Request, Women’s Household and Workbasket.
Vida won several awards in national needlework contests.
Vida also wrote poetry. Her poems have been published in Tatting Times, the Norfolk Daily News and the Omaha World-Herald.
She was a charter member of Free Lance Writers, a Norfolk club founded in 1978. The groups 2012 book, Christmas Prairie Tales, includes pictures of her tatted and crocheted Christmas ornaments and her poem about a tatted snowflake.
Vida is survived by two daughters, Gloria Sunderman of Norfolk and Lois Harms of Lincoln; daughter-in-law, Jackie Sunderman of Norfolk; two grandchildren and spouses, Greg and Lori Sunderman of Lincoln and Angie and Kurt Burbach of Omaha; two great-grandchildren, Eli Burbach of Omaha and Sam Sunderman of Lincoln; one sister, Ila Sjuts of Columbus; and two brothers and spouses, Vernon and Marlene Seevers of O’Neill and Paul and Shirley Seevers of Nemaha, Iowa.
She was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Ralph; two sons, Les and Loyd; and three brothers, Harold, Ernie and Eldon.
