Barbara Jean Premer Thoelke was born on Friday, May 13, 1932 and passed away July 23, 2022 at the age of 90.

Strong, independent, loving wife and business partner of William Henry "Bill" Thoelke (dec. August 5, 2009). Beloved mother and dear friend to her four sons Eric (and wife Mary Wegmann), Mark (and wife Gail Workman), Craig (and wife Susan Rusnack), and Kirk (and wife Stacy Ziemann). She loved being a grandmother to Katie, Justin, Matt, Mariah, Emma, Olivia, Erin, Jessica, Scott and Brett, great-grandmother to the next generation, and adoring pet companion. She was called Bobbie by her late parents and siblings, including mother Margaret Darby Premer, father George Premer, sister Patricia (ne: Larkin), and brother David Premer; she was the buoyant family jester and caregiver.

Mom was born with an adventurous spirit. At 20, she took a summer job in post-WW II Germany, tending to war orphans in the Rhine River valley. She was the first American many of the children ever knew. The summer job stretched to six months, then a year, until her parents dispatched an uncle to collect her back to Missouri.

She met Bill as a Freshman at Mizzou. She never called him "Bill", always called him "Toky". Together, they developed real estate and owned a motel on old Highway 66, now a widely-remembered landmark due to its distinctive Googie-era neon sign. There, she raised her four boys, reading poems and Jack London stories to them at bedtime, and later introducing them to opera, bluegrass, and Stravinsky. A lifelong artist, Mom set up an easel in the kitchen and painted in oils in a vigorous, impressionistic style influenced by Chaïm Soutine and Vincent van Gogh. She and Dad built an extension on the motel where she threw pots and sculpted, and fired everything in a fortress of a kiln built by Dad and friend Arthur Towata. It burned so blazing red during her night-time firings that people would screech off the nearby highway to warn them the house was on fire. Mom would try to sell them a pot.

Pottery led to a deep love of the Cahokia Mounds historic site. By acquiring far-flung properties built atop ancient burial mounds, her voluntary preservation efforts expanded the park's footprint for future archaeological research. In 2007, the Park awarded her its highest honors for service.

She and Dad loved to sail their boat, Old Salt , along the Palisades of the Mississippi. We all loved riding along, dodging barges and flotsam. They would throw massive multi-day parties for their artist and musician friends at the motel, with rooms for every guest. Later in life, they would stage elaborate fall festivals for the kids and grandkids at the home they designed, cozy on the bluff high above the confluence of the great rivers. She loved bonfires, English history, poetry, antiquing, and laughing, surrounded by her friends and family. She was beautiful, and didn't care; bookish, but loved outside more; adventurous, but rooted us all to this place.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society.

Ortmann Stipanovich Funeral Home   www.osfuneralhomes.com