Louisa Elizabeth Pickett Van Horne January 25, 1954 - January 15, 2020

Ruth Platt Pickett holding her youngest child,
 Louisa

Louisa Elizabeth was born on January 25, 1954 into the family of Lee and Ruth Pickett.  She was the youngest of their six children.  I and my brothers and sisters will miss our baby sister terribly.  Her funeral will be 11:00 Wednesday January 22 with visitation from 10-11 at Abundant Life Church, Lee's Summit Campus Admin Building, 414 SW Persels Rd, Lee's Summit MO 64081. Burial at Longview Cemetery.  Click here to view Louisa's obituary.

Her sweetness and cheerfulness belied the many challenges she faced in her life.  Much like her grandma Nancy Norris, she found herself at 22 alone with a three year old daughter, Heather, and newborn son, Lee Alan. 

 Also much like Grandma, she devoted herself to providing a stable and loving home to her children in the face of challenges not of her making.  With the help of Ruth and Lee, she worked to provide for her children, started a career in library work, and began the process of completing her college degree.

Van with Heather and Lee

She met, fell in love with, and married Willard VanHorne.  She and Van loved each other deeply and grew even closer through their Christian commitment to a life of service both in and out of the church.  Van legally adopted Heather and Lee and was  a wonderful father to them.  His passing in 2011  was a blow to Louisa and the family.

Heather and Lee pursued their lives and careers outside of Kansas City, Heather in Colorado and Lee in the Navy, currently Seattle area.  Louisa was proud of their accomplishments but even more of the kind of people they were and are:  deeply committed to their Christian faith, family and service.

Louisa celebrating her degree with Mom and Mary
at Andy and Lois Sciolaro's home

In 2000 she completed her college degree from Friends University in Wichita KS through an extension program in Kansas City.  In 1990 she had began a career in cataloging for the Mid Continent Library which serves 35 libraries in three Missouri counties.  She eventually became head of a cataloging unit at the Midwest Genealogy Center, a modern building housing a stand alone and world class genealogy collection and services.  She retired in 2018 after 28 years of service.  This video contains her remarks at a reception given by her co-workers.

Louesa Elizabeth Funk Muir
Louisa's namesake and Great
Grandmother

Louisa faced a number of health challenges.  For most of her life, she suffered from a variety of auto-immune diseases including fibromyalgia .  She suffered through a knee replacement which became infected, very nearly fatal.  She then had to go through two more surgeries, first to remove the prosthetic and put in a spacer and antibiotics and then to remove that and place a second replacement.  She faced the prospect of actually losing her leg if the infection could not be contained.  She also was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that forms in a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell. Multiple myeloma causes cancer cells to accumulate in the bone marrow, where they crowd out healthy blood cells.  Her "smoldering" multiple myeloma became active and began to produce amyloids, a destructive protein, that resulted in amyloidosis.  This attacked several organs but especially her kidneys which lost 85 percent of their function.  This summer she underwent stem cell replacement therapy with all the attendant pain, discomfort and isolation.

I mention all this only to show the difficult health challenges she faced.  And yet, with all this, she never lost hope, deepened her already strong faith in God and was cheerful and sweet when almost anyone else would have been overwhelmed.  She left us on Wednesday January 15 and she leaves a hole in our hearts which will never be completely filled. 

You can click here to view some photos of Louisa from the Pickett Family Photographs Archive.