Karen Seckler

I just found out that our friend Karen Seckler died in June of 2022 and I didn't even know. Learning that sad news has brought back memories of our time with her and how she touched our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob met Karen through his association with Fort Collins home builder Carl Nelson. Together the three of them designed and built Karen and husband David a new home in Terry Shores in the early 1970s. 

 

 

 

I first met Karen and David at the open house when the home was finished. It was a beautiful two-story with an impressive fireplace that dominated one wall rising the full height of the house, a detached and matching building for Karen's art studio, and a view of Terry Lake through pines. 

 

The guests at the open house included all the tradesmen who worked on the house and their spouses. Someone tripped and we heard glass shattering on tile floor, then David's lighthearted comment that put everyone at ease, "Now that's what makes a home a house!" I knew then I liked that man.

Bob was in touch with Karen occasionally over the next fifteen years as she and her family of four moved where David's work would take them, even living in India for a few years. I learned from her obituary that Karen was born in India where her parents were Lutheran missionaries. David was an economics professor, very much involved in water resource management in foreign countries. 

I don't remember how it came to be that Karen and their daughters, Adrienne and Veronica, with their young cousin Courtney, spent a weekend with us in 1988. Our niece Rachel was visiting from Illinois and it may be Karen was in Greeley visiting family, talked with Bob on the phone, and a plan came together for the girls to meet one another and hang out. What I do remember is that we had a fun time together and packed a lot of activities into that weekend.

 

Karen's family had a cabin in the Rockies which the whole family shared at times and constructed together. Rachel and I were invited to join in and add our piece of the wall to the cabin!

 

 

 

 

 

We visited an amusement park with its rides, snacks, face painting, and people-watching.

 

 

 

 

 

At our home we sat around and read books, did some knitting and other crafts, and talked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out in the yard Bob brought Sid the horse close to the house where everyone could brush, feed, water, and lead him. 

He was a young stallion, not ready to ride, but gentle enough for handling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that visit Adrienne and Rachel were penpals for awhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then in 2000 I got a phone call from Karen with terrible news. Their lovely young daughter, Adrienne, had died of brain cancer at the age of 26. That was so unbelievable. She was so vibrant, so healthy, with high hopes for her future. I wish that I had been the good listener Karen needed, put my own grief aside and let her lean on me. Instead I told her of how Rachel had lost her mother, my sister Kathy, to suicide just a few years before Karen lost Adrienne. And how Bob's dad had just died after surviving a serious farm accident, a tractor fire.

Karen Seckler was kind and easy going all the while being smart, independent and artistic. She designed several complex and beautiful homes down to the small details like the placement of each electrical outlet, then worked with the builders from start to completion. 

Her presence in my life was as if an exquisite butterfly lit nearby, stayed long enough for me to appreciate her strength and beauty, then flew up, away and out of sight without disturbing the air around us. I am a better person for having known Karen Seckler. She left David, Veronica, grandchildren and siblings to carry on her legacy, and I know she left many friends and admirers like me and Bob to mourn her passing.