Kay (Ober) Lindahl ’68

Kay Ober Lindahl had tremendous talent and energy for comforting the sick and dying. She could empathize with them and their families, not only because she had been a hospice chaplain for the past 6 ½ years, but also because she had battled breast cancer since summer 1988. “Because she has had the struggle with cancer, she has been able to speak with the authority of one who knows,” said the Rev. Alan Hagstrom, director of the St. Croix Chaplaincy that serves eight health care facilities, including the Lakeview Hospice in Stillwater. “She would help families get through the dying process, through the goodbyes- help people know they had to do that,” he said. “She often would end up doing the services for the family.” Lindahl died Friday at her home in rural Hudson, Wis. She was 50. A former speech pathologist, Lindahl was inspired to change careers, in part, by her identical twin sister, Kit, who fought breast cancer for years before she died Sept. 9, 1979. Kay Lindahl was born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a small river town outside of Cleveland. After graduating from high school, she went “college- hopping” and fell in love with the grounds and buildings at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. She majored in English and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in 1968. When she decided that she didn’t want to be an English teacher, she went to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, earning a degree in speech pathology. She married Dick Lindahl on April 22, 1972. She worked with children and adults with language and speech disorders at United Hospital and the University of Minnesota and in the St. Paul public schools. She also worked with the St. Croix County (Wis.) Infant Development Program. It was her twin’s illness and death at age 33 that ultimately led Lindahl into the ministry. She enrolled at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in the mid-1980s, a couple of years before her breast cancer was diagnosed. She already had decided not to be a church pastor, but a hospital and hospice pastor, her husband said. She had done volunteer work in her community, in hospices and in the area of drug and alcohol abuse, he said. She graduated from the seminary in January 1990 and immediately joined the St. Croix Chaplaincy Association, working primarily at Lakeview Hospice and also at Linden Health Care Center in Stillwater. Even while she was undergoing chemotherapy she insisted on working, her husband said. “She’d take her chemo treatment and be sick,” he said. “She’d be in bed for three days and on the fourth day she’d get up and go to work. She found a whole lot of meaning in what she was doing. And it was very painful to give up.” It wasn’t until the July 4^th weekend that she realized she could no longer function as a staff chaplain and was brought into the hospice program, Hagstrom said. Lindahl was a longtime member of People’s Congregational Church in Bayport, MN. She enjoyed spending time with her family on their hobby farm outside of Hudson. She loved being outdoors, camping, traveling and reading. She instilled her love of horses and music in her two daughters. “Kay had a little picture frame with an embroidered saying on it up in her room that says, ‘Choose Life,’” her husband said. “She has always looked to the bright side.” Besides her husband, she is survived by daughters Katherine, 21, and Charissa, 19; her mother, Bebe Ober, of Chagrin Falls; her father, John Ober, of Sun City, AZ, and a brother, Tony Ober, of Seattle. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater. Memorials are suggested to the Lakeview Hospice. Arrangements are by the Cremation Society of Minnesota.——————————————-Kay was my Carleton roommate all four years – clearly whatever system they had for matching us worked. We used to joke that it had probably been horses (my Montana ranch background and her hunting/jumping experience). I wrote a piece for her in the Voice (Fall 2000) after our daughter Jocelyn graduated from Carleton. Thanks to Karla Menze Vandersypen for finding me and reminding me – it meant a lot to me to read it again. This list of departed classmates is a tough one for me. I still haven’t decided whether or not to come to the reunion, but I’ll at least update bios for me and Bill (yeah, still together after these 48 years), and fill in the space for Kit (Kay’s twin – who also left me to fend for myself all these years). As I write that pathetic little whine, I’m reminded of Kay remarking that she tended to get irritated with Kit for leaving her alone to deal with their mother: Bebe Iannelli Ober – larger than life, exuberant, opinionated, my mom-away-from-mom. She lost both those daughters she loved more than life itself, I don’t know how she did it. I love and miss you all.Nina Adams Christensen ’68