Pauline L Wagner

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, September 29, 2018 in Howe and Yockey Funeral Home, Shelbyville, IL with Rev. Jan Lawson officiating. Visitation will be from 4:00-7:00 p.m. Friday, September 28, 2018. Burial will be in St. John’s Cemetery, Shelbyville, IL. Memorials may be given to St. John’s Lutheran Church, Shelbyville.

Pauline was the hardworking beauty with a sharp wit and a quick comeback, raised on a modest farm in Middlesworth, east of Shelbyville, IL. When she was 20, she caught an appraising whistle from a young man gazing down from the second floor of Sparks Business College. She married that man, Noel Wagner, and raised three boys with him. Together they built a successful farm near Shelbyville, growing corn, soybeans, and hogs. She was a dedicated farm wife, an equal partner and a pinch hitter in the day to day, tending house or her garden or driving a grain truck during harvest.

If you spent time with her, your memories are likely of her in the kitchen. She made the best noodles from scratch for chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes. She said her secret was farm fresh brown eggs. Thanksgiving was never Thanksgiving without a piece of her pecan pie. And no visit was complete without her breakfast standard – poached eggs, half slices of bacon, buttered toast triangles, and little glasses of juice.

She had beautiful hands. They were like stars, they tapered at the tips. They were hands that did the chores, held babies, pushed the mower, cooked the dinner, picked produce in her garden, wagged her finger to make a point, clapped once in happiness at the sight of her grandchildren before wrapping them in a hug, nursed her own mother and father in their golden years, held the hymnal, and always waved us goodbye while we waved back.

When her memories faded and she became unmoored from the present, her heart anchored around her love for Noel. In the fog of her final years, she was often living in the comfort of her past with her mom (Berte Blanche Onion Hudson, and her daddy, (Paul Louis Hudson), and her sisters (Armeda and Melba). It is by design that she collected angels. Now she is among them.

She is survived by her husband, Noel of Shelbyville, IL; sons, Brock Wagner of Columbus, IN, Blair Wagner (Lynne) of Holton, KS, and Brad Wagner (Anne) of Mattoon, IL; seven grandchildren; and five great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Ralph and Paul Hudson; two sisters, Armeda Jenness and Melba Ethridge; and one granddaughter, Courtney Wagner.

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