Pauline (Langellier) Nichols

PAULINE D. NICHOLS, 88, died Sunday morning, January, 11, 2015, at St. Anne Home, of complications from vascular dementia. She lived most of her life in Fort Wayne, where she was a wife, mother, grandmother, and community volunteer. Pauline was born in 1926, in Stockland Township, Iroquois County, east-central Ill., the sixth of seven children of Thomas and Margaret Langellier. She grew up on farms in both Iroquois County and, across the Indiana border, in Benton County. She attended grade school in Dunnington, Ind., and high school in Freeland Park, Ind., where she was an athlete and cheerleader. Pauline often recalled riding with her siblings to grade school in a horse-drawn buggy, with hot bricks wrapped in towels keeping their feet warm on freezing mornings. As farmers who raised their own food and livestock, her family fared better than many city-dwellers during the Great Depression, though times were hard and luxuries non-existent. Pauline moved to Fort Wayne in 1944 to attend business classes at St. Francis College. She worked at International Harvestor, in the company’s blueprint-reproduction department, during the last year of World War II, when IH was heavily involved in producing trucks for the armed services. She left the company in 1955, in advance of the birth of her first child. For several years during this time, she also worked as a nanny for, and lived at the residence of, Fort Wayne physician and surgeon Dr. Stephen Michaels. During this time, she met George Nichols, whose family was from Benton Country, Ind., a veteran of World War II service in the Army Air Corps., who was finishing his undergraduate degree at Indiana University, Bloomington. Pauline and George were married in 1950, in Fowler, Ind., Benton County, and made Fort Wayne their permanent home. George worked for Central Soya Company while Pauline stayed at home with their two sons, David and Daniel, living in the house George and his father built for the family. Pauline and George where married 58 years. George died in 2008. Pauline was a charter member of St. Charles Catholic Church and was active in the parish Rosary Sodality. She was a founder of the parish’s social-action committee in the mid-1960s, and was active in the committee’s work—primarily its Miss Virginia Project—for over 50 years. Pauline was also involved as a volunteer in several programs promoting racial unity in Fort Wayne. She was a lifelong Democrat—though critical of the party’s positions on some important issues—and, with her husband, an avid IU basketball fan. She had a hearty sense of humor, an infectious laugh, and loved to tell her children and grandchildren stories of her upbringing on the Illinois-Indiana prairie before electric service, indoor plumbing, and other amenities were available to farm families. In addition to her husband, Pauline was preceded in death by her son Daniel, her parents, and five brothers and two sisters. Surviving are her son David (Mary Pat) of Fort Wayne; daughter-in-law Patti of Fort Wayne (who cared for Pauline in her home the last two years of her life); three grandchildren, Kate and Meghan, both of San Francisco, and Erin, of Nashville, Tenn.; three step-grandchildren, Nathaniel and Mica, both of San Diego, and Danielle of Fort Wayne; several brothers- and sisters-in-law; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Visitation is from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday at St. Charles Catholic Church, with funeral services at the church beginning at 10:30 a.m. Burial in Catholic Cemetery to follow. Preferred memorials to St. Patrick Clothing and Food Bank, 2120 South Harrison St., Fort Wayne, Ind. 46802.

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