Lilly I Nutter

December 12, 1912 - November 12, 2015

Lilly I. Nutter, 102, of Warren, Indiana passed away at 4:25 a.m. Thursday, November 12, 2015, at Bluffton Regional Medical Center. Born December 12, 1912, (12-12-12) Lilly Isabella Von Treiber, to Joseph and Maria (Galowitch) Von Treiber in Chicago, IL. Her first job was in a notary public’s office as a young teenager, typing legal papers, insurance policies and handling license plates. In the 1930’s, she was as a typist at Thatcher Glass in Bakersfield, California where she typed over 100 words per minute error free. In 1942-43 she was a tele-typist for the Department of Defense with the Army in Bakersfield, CA. She and her husband Tom moved to the Peru, Indiana area in the early 1960’s, where she worked at Grissom Air Force Base. In 1968, they moved to the Warren, Indiana area to reside on the Nutter home place, a 20 acre land grant along and it was divided by the Salamonie River. There she raised flowers and could name them by their scientific name, and vegetables, and sold the vegetables from huge garden plots on their property along the Salamonie River. She was a housekeeper for the United Methodist Memorial Home (now Heritage Pointe) for 17 years, and later retired there in 1994. Just because she was over 65 did not mean she was “retired”, she traveled with her family and friends and participated in some exciting things; like parasailing in Mexico, and visited Germany twice. It was like she started a whole new chapter in her life after she had both her knees replaced when she was in her mid-70’s. Lilly was a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Marion, Indiana. She always said “God will provide”, and “God answers prayers”, and she felt so blessed. In 1998 she earned the Huntington County Senior Volunteer award. She went on to win the Northeast Indiana regional competition and represented the area at the Indiana State Fair that year. In 2000, she was named the 12th Samuel Jones Award Winner with the Warren Salamonie Summer Festival and was presented with a key to the Town of Warren. In 2004, she was awarded the Indiana Department of Commerce Office of Tourism’s, Lieutenant Governor’s Hospitality Award. It was for providing exceptional service to guests of Indiana tourism attractions and this was associated with her volunteer efforts to run the box office for over 20 years with the Pulse Opera House, she even enlisted her Real Elegant Dames Red Hatter Group of Warren to help with the box office and be ushers at the many productions. She volunteered for the American Cancer Society for 12 years and helped raise over $27,000 through their Daffodil Days campaign. She worked the polls for the election board in Huntington County and stayed current and active in politics. When the U.S. government was closing small local post offices, she began a campaign to save the Warren Post Office, and was successful. For many years she was the chair-person for the Salamonie Summer Festival Flower Show, she volunteered to be hostess along with her friends at the SSF Art Show during the festival. Lilly was a member of the Bayview Reading Club for many years and wrote poetry. She volunteered at the Warren Bread of Life Food Pantry for many years. She was the face of Warren via the Welcome Wagon program for many years, and was instrumental in instituting a calling program to remind or take reservations for the Warren Chamber of Commerce members, thus boosting the regular attendance of the Warren Chamber to numbers unheard of for a small town, and she regularly attended those monthly Chamber meetings, with the October 2015 meeting being her final meeting. She prided herself in keeping current with national news. Generally on Thursday nights at Heritage Pointe there is entertainment, and she would go to others and assist them to the activities room, so they could enjoy the music. On Friday’s , it is well known for ice cream in the afternoon. She regularly delivered to several rooms through-out the buildings, about 30 dishes of ice cream, that she would take to those not able to get to the Cove for ice cream. She continued this through September 2015. In 2002, she formed the first Red Hatter Group in Huntington County, the Real Elegant Dames (RED), and was the “Queen Mum” for many years, she arranged many monthly outings and tea parties for her Sister Red Hatters. For the last 20 years she has regularly invited little girls from the community, daughters and granddaughters of friends, and hosted 100’s of tea parties as she demonstrated to the wee ones, the proper etiquette of brewing and serving her favorite Earl Grey tea. Many delighted young girls, (and some not so young) have been hosted by Lilly at her tea parties, and along with their mothers or grandmothers, were able to serve “one lump or two” sugar cubes with their tea. For the last 13 years, Lilly has supported our U.S. Troops by preparing monthly care packages to send to Troops in Harm’s Way. It was a request from her grand-daughter’s husband who was serving overseas in his second tour, that had noticed that some of his men never received mail or anything from home, and that it might help their homesickness if they received a card or letter from home. She actually took this a step further, and since she was not certain what to send, she made a simple request at a Warren function where the retired men of the decommissioned U.S.S. Salamonie were visiting, and planning to put their museum in the Knight-Bergman Civic Center, in Warren. That resulted in them personally “adopting” Lilly and her shoebox mission project, and it would not have been possible for her to send 1,460 boxes through September 2015, if she had not had that chance encounter with the President of the U.S.S. Salamonie Association and the funds they provided for the postage. She collected the supplies and goodies to fill up the boxes from her family, friends and business associates. She would include her calling card and a note in each box, and signed off on each one,” Hugs, Love and Prayers”. Her husband, Thomas A. Nutter preceded her in death in 1985. Her sons, Neil (of California) and Lance (of Missouri), preceded her in death. Her daughter, Betty Campbell survives in Sheridan, IN. She was preceded in death by two brothers, Joseph and Ervin, and also by two sisters, Evelyn and Helen. She is survived by 9 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild. Many close friends that she considered family survive in the Warren area. Any preferred memorials, in lieu of flowers, should be made out to Heritage Pointe and noted on the memo line, for the Lilly Nutter Memorial Fund, at 801 Huntington Avenue, Warren, IN 46792 A Celebration of Lilly’s Life will be held on Saturday, December 12, 2015 at Heritage Pointe, in the Applegate Chapel, 801 Huntington Avenue, Warren, Indiana at 1 p.m. with Pastor Dick Case officiating. Friends can share memories and send condolences to the family at www.thomarich.com. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to the care of the Thoma/Rich, Lemler Funeral Home in Bluffton.