ARLINGTON — Louise Edlen, the grandma whose elegant wave taught hundreds of children about the big value of small gestures, died on Christmas Eve. She was 93.
Louise was fondly known as “Grandma in the Window” by students who rode the bus home from school in Arlington. She waved from her dining room window when the buses passed her house, and students waved back. It was the highlight of her afternoon for five years, husband Dave Edlen said.
This fall, the story of Louise’s bond with a bus driver and a busload of middle school students touched the hearts of people around the country when it was shared by the school district, news outlets and on social media.
Louise had a stroke in September and spent several weeks in a recovery center. Driver Carol Mitzelfeldt and the kids on Bus 7 made her a get-well card and a poster-sized photo of them waving out the windows of the bus. When Louise came home on Oct. 27, students greeted her from the bus by pressing letters against the windows to spell out “Welcome Home.”
They put up more letters on their last bus ride before winter break, Louise’s daughter Vicki Walls said. This time, they spelled “Merry Christmas.”
Louise died while the students were on break. Walls expects it’ll be hard for them to hear the news, but she hopes they know how much their kindness meant to her family.
Floradelle Louise Edlen, who went by Louise, was born on the last day of 1921 in Berne, Indiana. She was the oldest of four children. At 18, she and a friend took a train to San Diego, where they helped build airplanes at the start of World War II.
“That was a really big deal for someone from Berne, Indiana,” said Cheri Jensen, her oldest daughter. “But that was just her sense of adventure.”
She moved from California to Austin, Texas, where she met and married her first husband, Jason Thibodeaux. They were married for 16 years and had 10 children. He was in the army, and the family lived for a while in Japan and then Germany. Jensen recalls traveling by boat because Louise was terrified of flying. Those days were often tough and unpredictable, but Louise always took care of her family.
She met her second husband, Dave Edlen, in El Paso, Texas. They married in 1962. It was a second chance at love for both, and they remained devoted to each other the rest of Louise’s life, Walls said. They had three more children and moved to Kirkland in 1963, then Arlington in 1998.
Louise was a hardworking homemaker with eight daughters and five sons. Eleven of the siblings still are living. They gave her 31 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren. Dave worked three jobs at a time to support the family.
Walls remembers growing up in a busy, loving household. There was never a dull moment.
Louise welcomed new friends with open arms and adopted stray cats. There were home-cooked meals every night, with food enough for anyone who might drop by.
“We all brought a lot of friends home and one thing I loved about Mom is it was never too many,” Walls said. “She’d say, ‘Just throw another potato in the stew.’”
She had a subtle wit that shined in the one-liners she’d deliver to make people laugh. She was dedicated to her children and husband. She and Dave had a love that inspired their family. Every evening, they made time to be alone so they never lost track of each other in their houseful of kids.
Louise sacrificed her own wants or needs to take care of their big family, her daughters said.
“She wouldn’t go to the doctor or dentist so we could go,” Walls said. “She wouldn’t buy herself new clothes so that we could have nicer clothes. We always had what we needed and she’d wear the same old sweater.”
She saved up to buy every one of her children a new outfit at the start of the school year and they had their own shoes rather than hand-me-downs, Jensen said. For the Fourth of July, the family usually went to get hamburgers at a drive-in and watch the fireworks. There always were Christmas presents under the tree in December.
“Mom was there for us,” Jensen said. “She always provided for us.”
Louise was taken to the hospital with signs of congestive heart failure a couple of days before Christmas. She died there surrounded by family.
Louise is survived by husband Dave Edlen; daughters Cheri Jensen, Suzanne Karr, Mary Lou Peck, Vicki Walls, Kathy Thibodeaux, Lori Patterson and Lynda Gast; sons Greg Thibodeaux, Robert Thibodeaux, Mark Thibodeaux and Jeff Edlen; brother Stan Amstutz; sister Myrna Bauman; 31 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.
The family held a memorial service Saturday in Arlington.
On Monday morning, Jensen was making a sign to put up in the window her mom waved from. She planned to have it up in time for kids on the afternoon buses to see it.
“Grandma went to heaven,” Jensen said. “That’s what it’s going to say: ‘Grandma went to heaven. She loved you all.’”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com
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