Florence Marie (Carlson) Wertz

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Wertz, Florence Marie (Carlson) January 11, 1923 December 9, 2019 Florence Wertz died Monday as a consequence of congestive heart failure, just 37 months short of her goal of living to 100. Florence was born the third child of Gerda Marie (Swanson) and Axel Jacob Carlson in Chicago, Illinois. She grew up on Chicago's south side and attended Augustana College, Rock Island, graduating with a degree in speech therapy. While there, she married the love of her life, John E. Wertz, in 1943. They moved to St. Peter, Minnesota where John took a position at Gustavus Adolphus College. In 1945, when John was hired by the University of Minnesota, they moved to St. Paul where they raised their family. She's lived in Minneapolis since 1998. Florence worked as a Speech Pathologist for the Minneapolis Public Schools starting in 1951. In the early years of her career, she provided speech therapy at a number of elementary schools on a rotating schedule. Later she worked at Michael Dowling School for the mentally and physically handi-capped until retiring in 1984. She was an advocate for the commun-ication capacity of severely disabled children, and taught, used, and presented professionally a graphic communication method, "Blissymbolics," as a part of her work. Bliss is a mechanism for speech pathologists to offer an alternate form of communication when verbal communication was not possible. Her work incorporated (with Kent Kerberg) computerizing the Bliss symbols in the earliest days of the Apple computer. She was a woman of deep and abiding faith. In her childhood and through her adult life she was active in her church, serving as Sunday School teacher and choir member for many years at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, St. Paul. In these roles, she was often in leadership positions; a consummate organizer and coordinator. While her children grew, she was active in Cub Scouts as a Den Mother and as a Girl Scout Troop leader for many years. She also enjoyed gardening, entertaining, baking, traveling, and camping with her family. For hobbies, she favored the applied arts including cake decorating and, later in life, china painting. Her love of international travel began in 1957 when she and the children joined John in Oxford, England during his sabbatical from the University of Minnesota. In retirement, she and John purchased a home in Mesa, Arizona and she remained a snowbird for more than two decades. Following John's death in 1997, she married Kent Schoenberger in 2004 shortly before his sudden death later that year. She then married Richard Wickworth in 2005. Dick died in 2016. She was preceded in death by her parents, her older brothers Vincent A. and LeRoy T., and her husbands. She is survived by children, John A. (Margie Schlangen), St. Cloud; Byron A. (Karen), St. Paul; and Kristin M. (Mary Danielson), St. Paul; grandchildren Joseph E. (Ellen) and Allison Gunther (Jim) of Eagan, MN, and great grandchildren Axel Gunther and Edward Wertz. A memorial service will be held at Becketwood Cooperative Chapel (4300 West River Parkway South) at 1:30 PM on Thursday, December 19th, 2019. Private interment will be at Resurrection Cemetery on a future date. No flowers please. Memorials to a charity of your choice, or to the Florence & John Wertz Chair (Speech Commun-ications) at Augustana College, 639 38th Street, Rock Island, Illinois 61201 and/or the Dr. John E. Wertz Fellowship in Chemistry (Fund # 5228) at the University of Minnesota Foundation, 200 Oak Street SE, Suite 500, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

Published on December 15, 2019