Evelyn R. (Duval) Larrick, 75, was born May 11, 1945, in Red Cloud, to Marion and June (Potts) Duval of Bladen. Evelyn passed away unexpectedly on July 9, 2020, in Sun City, AZ.
She graduated from Bladen High School in 1963, and after graduating nursing school in Lincoln, and a few years in Phoenix, AZ, Lincoln, and Hastings, she married her high school sweetheart, Kenneth Larrick, on Nov. 26, 1975. They lived and farmed south of Bladen until retiring in 2007 and moving to Sun City in 2013.Evelyn was truly a one-of-a-kind woman, practical and pragmatic, always willing to help a friend or neighbor, giving all of herself to her family, and forever keeping her signature dry sense of humor through all the ups and downs that life would bring.
She was always willing to give up her free time to accompany neighbors to the doctor, using her background in nursing to help interpret sometimes devastating news, and be there to support her friends in any way she could.
Evelyn capably farmed with her dad as a teenager and later with Ken, driving a grain truck into her 60’s and leaving a myriad of legendary stories about her toughness and sense of humor for the farmers in Bladen to tell; once attempting to sell a frustrating grain truck by posting a handwritten sign in the Co-op, which indicated “If Ken answers, hang up!”
She raised four children on a struggling farm in the 1980’s. She loved listening to the Willie Nelson Christmas album in July. She taught her son to be respectful and hard-working and her daughters to be strong, capable, and independent. She would have thought this obituary was too long and emotional. (Sorry Mom!)
Evelyn loved to travel with Ken, visiting 43 of the 50 states together and keeping a map of the United States on the wall with the roads they had driven highlighted, crisscrossing the map.
She spent her first several years of retirement caring selflessly for her parents, who passed in 2014 and 2015. In retirement, she happily crafted, sewed, quilted, painted, and embroidered a variety of projects for her children, grandchildren, friend’s grandchildren, churches, and anyone else in need. A few of her last projects were making facemasks to protect truckers from COVID-19, and sewing superhero capes for her youngest grandchildren’s stuffed bunny and snail.
She was so many people’s best friend. Evelyn knew that she would spend eternity with her heavenly Savior, and ultimately a heart attack took her the way she would have wanted to go, fast, with nothing any of us could have done or changed, adding no burden to anyone, pragmatic and selfless to the end.
She took her most joy from her children and grandchildren, who will always remember her kind heart and especially now her life lesson, that you just have to keep laughing through the hard times.
Evelyn is preceded in death by her parents; and brother and sister-in-law Jim and Jeannie Larrick of Valley.
She will live always in the hearts of her husband, Ken Larrick of Sun City, AZ, who has loved her since he was six years old; her children: Cris (Denise) Larrick of Emporia, KS, Sarah (Todd) Joyce of Surprise, AZ, Amy (Raul) Chavez-Valdez of Catonsville, MD, and Jennifer (Dennis) Sykora of Hastings; her grandchildren: Samantha (Ryan) Hayes of Kansas City, KS, Madison (Dustin) Bluma of Emporia, KS, Ashlee Larrick of Colorado Springs, CO, Alan Landwehr of Emporia, KS, Kaitlyn Bierhaus and fiancé Alex LaFollette of Surprise, AZ, Andrew Bierhaus of Denton, NE, and Benjamin and Jacob Chavez-Valdez of Catonsville, MD; two sisters, Mardelle (Jerry) Grandstaff of Bladen, and Marilyn Duval of Glendale, AZ; as well as numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, and neighbors, who will all miss the way that Evelyn would always say unexpected things to make them laugh.
A celebration of life will be held at a later date.
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