Harriett Louise Resler

HARRIETT LOUISE RESLER

Harriett Louise Resler went home to be with our Lord on August 6, 2023. She was 100 years old. Even though Louise had dealt with Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life, she remained loving and smiling, and blessed by those caring for her. She is survived by her daughter, Sandra Nelson, her son, Eugene Resler, Jr., sister Betty Walker, and other family members.

Born Harriett Louise Chew on March 13, 1923, in Danville, Illinois, she grew up on a farm. Louise was one of six children, though only three survived to live a full life. Margaret, the eldest, died in a car crash while in high school. William died young of a virus, and Jim died in his forties. Louise and her twin sisters, Mary and Betty, were very close and loved to sing and dance. Louise liked to write and was an excellent student in school.

During her high school senior year, Louise fell in love with Eugene (Gene) Resler who was two years older. Gene had grown up on a farm in Odon, Indiana, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1939. They were married in 1941. Their daughter, Sandra, was born a year later, and four years after that, their son, Eugene, Jr. was born on the Resler farm in Odon. In 1945, Gene and Louise moved to California, along with his widowed mother, Tressa, and their two young children. Gene served as an aircraft armorer until the end of World War II. When he resigned from the Army, they moved to a house on twenty acres outside Redding, California.

Louise busied herself raising two children while Gene became a carpenter. Louise enjoyed living in the country, baking, canning, cooking delicious foods, sewing clothes, and being a devoted wife and mother. They had two more children ten and twelve years after the first two. Their son, Ray Allen Resler, was studying to be a minister when he died in 1986 of leukemia. Their youngest daughter, Susan Lee Resler, died of appendicitis at the age of six in 1962.

Throughout their 66 years together, Gene and Louise enjoyed playing music and singing. He played guitar and Louise the accordion, both self-taught. Always open to new adventures, Louise followed Gene as he became a building contractor in Dorris, California, and served as Mayor there. Then they moved to Brookings, Oregon, where Gene worked in Civil Service and retired in 1981. Later, they lived in Sutherlin, Oregon, to be close to their son, Ray. After Ray died, they moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1996, to be with their daughter, Sandra, and son-in-law, Paul.

In 2008, Gene fell, which left him wheelchair-bound, and he suffered from mild dementia. Paul and Sandy had moved to Arizona by then. They brought Gene and Louise to Prescott where he was in a better care facility, and Louise could be with him. He lived only three more months and died on March 29, 2008, at the age of 87. He is buried in Las Cruces, where Louise will join him. Fairacres Baptist Church will give a graveside service on August 18, at noon, for Louise at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens Cemetery, 5140 W. Picacho, Las Cruces, N.M., Lot 30, Space 6. The address is 5140 W. Picacho Av., Las Cruces, N.M. 88007.