Obituary of Herta E. Delducco

None Herta Elsa Delducco Herta, 83, passed away peacefully in her sleep at home on Wednesday, August 3, 2011. Herta was born May 15, 1928 in Radstadt, (West) Germany to Paul and Frieda Buschmann. She grew up in Wetzlar, Germany where she survived WWII combat. Herta met her husband of 61 years when he served in the US Army. They were married June 7, 1950 and shortly after she came to the States with him. Many people will remember Herta as their favorite salesperson, with the German accent, at the Olympia Greenhouses. Which she and her husband owned for 40 years. Herta enjoyed gardening, canning her own produce, knitting and playing card games. Like her husband, who preceded her in death by 2 months, Herta valued hard work, independence, and growing good food. She was an excellent cook and loved to feed people! The couple donated the use of their land to GRuB, a community based organization. Every year low-income teens learn those same values by growing thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables for market, the food bank and their own families. Herta’s 5 siblings preceded her in death. She is survived by 4 children, Stan, John, Carla, and Phyllis, three grandchildren, Barry, Seth and Kelli, two great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. A memorial celebration will be held for both Herta and Darwin Delducco Saturday, August 20th at 2 pm at GRuB’s Farm House. The family suggests memorials be made to GRuB in memory of the Delduccos, 2016 Elliott Ave NE, Olympia, WA 98502. To leave remembrances please go to FuneralAlternatives.org. The family would like to give special thanks to the caring nurses and staff at Providence St. Peter’s Hospital , to hospice nurses and staff, and especially Heidi and Sandy for being such caring caregivers at home. Herta Elsa Buschmann and Darwin Russell Delducco Herta was born in western Germany. She was a school girl during WWII, losing many of her classmates to bombings. One story we heard was she and another friend decided not to go with the rest of the class to the bomb shelter since her home was closer. The bomb hit the shelter and the rest of their class was lost. Darwin was born in Cle Elum, grew up in Cle Elum, Roslyn, and Sandpoint Idaho. He joined the US Army in 1945 and was honorably discharged in 1949. After school Herta worked in the American PX where she met Darwin, sent there by friends as a hopeful double date since he had a car. She liked what she saw and their love affair began. They married in 1950, in 1951 they moved to the states and started out their life in Spokane where Darwin attended Gonzaga. He began a civil engineering career in Olympia with the State Highways Department. They purchased a house on Lindell Road with plenty of space for a large garden. Darwin planted, Herta harvested and the produce was sold locally. Later purchasing the dilapidated Olympia Greenhouses. Customers were still coming, so our parents trying to please the customers built back up the greenhouses and our family business grew. All 4 children worked in the greenhouse between school and other jobs and the whole family loves plants. We didn’t always like the business but we sure liked playing in the dirt and with the plants. The business consumed our lives, vacations were few but we managed to go to Soap Lake every summer where one of Herta’s brothers lived. Herta loved the sun and swimming. With her fair skin she’d always come home with a sunburn. We’d take a car full of plants and she’d be beautifying her brother’s place in between jumping in the lake to cool off. Herta did make it back to Germany several times to visit family and friends. And the Germany folks came here a few times. Her twin brother came twice, around their birthday in May, which was the busiest weekend in our nursery. The newspaper did an article with a picture of him selling fuchsia baskets, he knew enough English to tell them the price and yes or no! He was a great salesperson just like Mom. Once a car dealer asked Mom to come work for him. She replied “I don’t know anything about cars”. He said “you don’t need to, you’re a natural born salesperson”! Herta loved her family, especially her children – she often said the only thing she ever wanted was to be a Mom. She was the best Mom. Then she became the best Oma (German for grandma). She didn’t spoil us until later in life. She taught us to be responsible with money by starting in the school savings program. We took our yellow envelope to school every week with a quarter (if we had that much) in it. She taught us to always buy ‘on sale’. She was always such a people person. We were always shy (until much later in life!). Anyone who met Herta loved her. She loved to cook and feed people, sometimes to irritation. She taught us and friends to can peaches and her yummy dill pickles. She never let any food go to waste! After retiring from the nursery she started going with girlfriends to the local casinos. She especially loved playing in blackjack tournaments. As a family we were always playing cards. The gambling came later. But she was never a big gambler, it was more the game playing and competition that intrigued her. She was quite the contender in those tournaments, winning prize money frequently. Other players would see her coming and say “we might as well not play since you’re here – you’re too hard to beat”. Herta was always one to be busy, never wasting a step and not sitting down until all the work was done. Then when she did sit down, she fell right to sleep until doing it all over again the next day. Then her legs got tired which made her grumble, slowing down wasn’t something she liked. The last few years she did not like needing a walker or falling down. She didn’t like not being able to cook all her meals like she used to. She didn’t like not feeling like she could drive anymore. She didn’t like needing help for everything. She did like having all us children around. The last year she had a couple of close calls with gall bladder, clogged arteries, resulting in 2 surgeries and complications. After the second surgery she improved dramatically. She went to Kelli’s graduation and started exercise classes at the senior center. Unfortunately the bad stroke on July 24th did her in. We called in hospice and brought her home on July 29th, where all 4 of us children moved in until her passing on Wednesday, August 3rd at 1:40 am. We were all sleeping including Mom. Her caregiver, Heidi was with her, saying it was the most loving and peaceful death she had experienced. I think she hung on because she didn’t want to stop taking care of us. Then she must have realized she couldn’t do it anymore. Herta’s twin brother passed away February 7th, leaving her as the last surviving sibling of 5, which she didn’t like either. Then Darwin passed away June 1st, when she said to him “I wish I could come with you”. Darwin decided a few months prior that he wanted to die before her, not wanting to live without her. He died of liver failure, doesn’t seem right since he wasn’t a drinker. They leave behind 4 children:Stan, John,Carla and Phyllis. Please leave your remembrances in the guestbook below. Thank you.