Obituary of Adeline Dahlman

Adeline Nora (Lyn) Dahlman, 83, of Cambridge experienced her final graduation - to Heaven and the presence of her Lord on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at GracePointe Crossing West, Cambridge. Lyn was born January 18, 1926 to Rev. Jacob A. and Annie (Ewert) Schmidt in Webster, South Dakota and grew up in several cites in Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas. With her parents and sister she travelled to most of the fifty states. After graduating from high school in Albert Lea, MN she received degrees in education from the Universities of Minnesota and South Dakota and was an educator in music, reading, kindergarten and first grade for hundreds of children in Iowa, Hawaii and California, concluding in Cambridge-Isanti, Minnesota schools between 1962 and 1991. She married Ensign Willis Dahlman on November 28, 1953 and they returned to live in Cambridge in 1962, raising their two children, Bruce and Lorene. In 1978 they travelled together visiting thirteen countries in Europe including Great Britain and Scandinavia and in 1994 to spend three months with their son, Bruce and his family, working in with AIM International in Kenya, East Africa. Her interest in history resulted in her efforts to save and restore the rural one-room West Riverside School where, for the last 37 years, hundreds of children have experienced what it was like to be a student in 1900. As an amateur genealogist she traced her husband's Swedish ancestry back to the 1600s. Tracing her own roots back to the 1500s in the Netherlands, she compiled their story of migration through Europe because of religious persecution in "The Schmidt Saga: One Pioneer Family - Ukraine to America 1874". Lyn continued to serve her Lord through the church wherever she lived. As a member at First Baptist in Cambridge this meant singing in the choir; mission's and weekly prayer gatherings; Christian Education, Constitution and the Heritage and Archives committees. Adeline will be missed by her husband, Willis, of Cambridge, Minnesota; son Dr. Bruce and his wife Kate of Nairobi, Kenya; daughter Lorene and her husband Doug Brown of Chanhassen, Minnesota; grandchildren Erik, Ryan and Kaari Dahlman and Kevin Brown; her sister, Dr. Ruth Schmidt of Atlanta, Georgia and many other relatives, friends and former students. She was preceded in graduation by her parents. A special thanks to Dr. Allen Mork, Lyn's family physician and the caring staff of GracePointe Crossing.