Page 32 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2022 - Online Magazine

Exceptional
SENIORS
In Sickness &
In Health
Barbara Ehlers
by Ted Wilson
he booming metropolis of
Wilson has been the home
Tof some very special people,
including Barbara Ehlers. Barbara,
along with four sisters and a
brother, was born to “wonderful”
Christian parents, Wilbert and
Lorena Wuensche, in 1946. She met
Ray Ehlers in the eighth grade, and
they married three months after
graduation, in September 1964,
when they exchanged vows, “for
better or worse, in sickness and in
health….” Neither of them had
dated anyone else. It was as if God
had destined their lives together.
Barbara and Ray began their
married life together, living and
farming at New Home. Six years
later, they moved back to the family
farm at Wilson after the death of
Ray’s mother. Barbara worked
diligently alongside Ray on the
32 Lubbock Senior Link
farm, doing the typical homemaking was wiped out. They planted grain
chores and raising garden vegetables sorghum as did many neighbors.
for meals and canning, while also So, during harvest, after her day
raising children, David, Melinda, job, Barbara would haul the grain
and Paul. Maybe not so typically, and wait in line, sometimes for
she also drove tractors, helping with hours, to unload the trailers at the
the fieldwork necessary to raise and elevator. That year, they also custom
harvest crops that fed and clothed harvested some neighbors’ crops.
their family and many others. Somehow, they wound up having
a prosperous year even though it
In 1980, alongside her duties on the looked like it would be a disaster.
farm, Barbara began working at
the Wilson Independent Insurance Ray and Barbara moved to Lubbock
Agency, a job that lasted 21 years. in 2006 when Barbara retired at
After that, she lent her talents to age 60, to take care of her parents
Walker and Solomon Agency in after her mother suffered a massive
Tahoka. She recalls once having a stroke. Ray retired in 2015 and
huge garden and spending many sold his farm equipment. He began
hours after work harvesting, experiencing walking and stability
canning and freezing the fruit (or issues. He was first diagnosed with
vegetables) of their labors. After Frontal Lobe Atrophy, but just
that, they after Christmas 2019, physicians
opted for determined that he had Progressive
smaller Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). The
gardens. disease progressed, and Ray went
from needing a cane to a walker to
Farming life a wheelchair. Barbara’s caregiving
isn’t always focus shifted to her husband.
easy, but
even in bad While at Wilson, they were active
times, God at St. John Lutheran Church. They
provided. raised their family in a Christ-filled
One year the home, much as they had been
cotton crop raised. They were active in the Llano