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Posted on Mon, Mar. 07, 2005

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VICKI WEGERLE

Vicki Wegerle loved children -- her own as well as others -- say those who knew her.

"She was just the sweetest person, one of those people where you knew she never even raised her voice to her kids," said Wendi Jones.

Jones trusted Wegerle with her own children. When she was pregnant with her second child, Jones learned from a friend that Wegerle was expecting a baby too, and planned to do child care in her home. A few months later, Wegerle began caring for Jones' newborn son, Ryan, and her 2-year-old daughter, Kenna. She watched other children on and off as well, mostly after school, Jones said,

"There are certain people you meet in your life that you just can't imagine them ever thinking a bad thing about anybody," said Jones, who lives in Arlington, Texas. "I'm sure she probably had her moments, like everybody. But whenever I saw her she was very calm, very sweet."

Her family -- her husband, Bill, and two grown children -- was hesitant to speak but released a brief written statement: "Vicki will never be forgotten. She touched the lives of so many people and was very special to all of us."

Vicki Wegerle volunteered as a baby sitter both at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, which she regularly attended, and at Asbury United Methodist Church, which was in her neighborhood.

The Rev. Arno Meyer was pastor of St. Andrew's in 1986, when Wegerle was killed.

"She was a wonderful woman," said Meyer, now retired and living in Topeka. "She was just a mild-mannered mother, quiet and loving."

Jones remembers picking up her children from Wegerle's house after work. Some days, the women would stay there chatting for an hour or more.

"I'd pull up a chair, and her daughter would be playing with my daughter, so we'd just sit down and talk awhile," Jones said. "She and her whole family were just that way. I know they probably had things they needed to do, but she always had time to sit and talk about the kids."

Suzanne Perez Tobias