Elaine A. Showers, age 93, passed into her beloved Lord's presence on November 29, 2020, at Michealsen Health Care Center in Batavia, Illinois.
She was born July 5, 1927, in Mason City, Iowa, to Joseph and Olive Adelsman, their first of four daughters. Joe and Olive were good parents and her home was filled with an abundance of life and love, friends and music. She was raised to know Jesus, and from childhood her faith continued on to remain the centerpiece of her life.
Throughout her school years she was an excellent student and a wonderful musician, both as a pianist and as a vocalist. Desiring to attend Wheaton College after graduating from high school, but finding it financially impossible, she attended a local junior college for two years and a summer quarter at Iowa State Teacher's College to be able to teach and earn some money. She then accepted her first teaching job in a one room school outside of Mason City. This job lasted for three awful months (there was a crowd of boys there who were almost as old as she was, and bigger!) before she met and married Elman Showers in December of 1947, a much happier situation!
After marrying they moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to finish their undergraduate degrees, and after a one year stint at MIT for Elman, they moved back to Stillwater where he finished his Master's, and Elaine gave birth to Carol. Their first home after finishing his studies was in New Jersey where Elman worked for Bell Labs and Elaine cared for the needs of a burgeoning household. Kathy, David and Eileen were all joyfully welcomed into their arms during the next eight years. Elaine taught Sunday School, Daily Vacation Bible School, and Good News Clubs in their home during those years. As a couple she and Elman were both very involved in their small Christian and Missionary Alliance church.
But a great loss was quietly brewing during those years, and in 1960, after two years of miserable symptoms, Elman was finally diagnosed with cancer of the brain. Surgery was performed immediately, but he died two months later, leaving a yawning grief for Elaine and the children in the wake of his death.
During the four years after her husband died, Elaine's life reads like Mark's account of Jesus moving breathlessly from one event to the next. With the strong support of her parents, she spent one last year in New Jersey after Elman's death in order to finish more requirements for teaching, then moved in 1961 from New Jersey to Wheaton with her children, obtained a job teaching, tried unsuccessfully to buy a house, applied to three missions, was accepted by one, did three years of Moody Bible School in nine months, took Carol to Honduras and left her three younger children with her parents, and went to Costa Rica alone for a year of Spanish study. At the end of that year she picked Carol up and returned to get Kathy, David and Eileen, leaving Carol with her parents to start high school, and driving the long miles south to Siquatepeque, Honduras, in 1964, to live and teach at a school for missionary children for the next twelve years.
Known as Aunt Elaine to the children there, her major focus during those years was, of course, teaching, but she was also very involved in the local church, even playing a piano solo one time on national TV as part of a nation-wide evangelical broadcast.
What a remarkable woman!
It seems that Elaine listened well to God, because at the end of the twelve years she felt he was telling her to come back to Wheaton, so she returned in 1976. Within a year her father had suddenly died and she became her mom's companion and support.
She worked in Wheaton at Tyndale House Publishers until her retirement in 1994, continuing for many years after that doing freelance proofreading for them. She also continued active membership at Evangel Baptist Church in Wheaton throughout those years.
In 2004 she moved to The Holmstad in Batavia, Illinois, where she lived contentedly in a small studio apartment for the next 10 years. Increasingly needing more care, she spent a year in their assisted living unit before being moved to their memory care unit, where she lived out her remaining years.
She was known as a wonderfully kind and gentle lady by everyone there, a woman whose love and faith never wavered, even as her mind drifted more and more towards eternity. She will be missed by all.
She is survived by her children, Carol (Stephen) Montgomery, Kathleen (Mike) Mannweiler, David (Molly) Showers, and Eileen (Brian) Reilly; her grandchildren, Benjamin, Jennifer, Abigail, Susanna, Joshua, Jason, Seth, Sam, Keziah, Megan, Ian; her 22 great-grandchildren; her sister Bonnie Jo Adolph.
She was preceded in death by her husband Elman Showers, parents Joe and Olive Adelsman, grand-daughter Sarah Montgomery, and sisters Maybelle Nichols and Juline Casper.
Memorial gifts may be directed to the Benevolent Care Fund at Covenant Living at the Holmstad. https://www.covliving.org/giving For questions or help in making a donation, call Amanda Slaiher, 1-630-879-4200.
Family and friends may sign a guest book at hultgrenfh.com. For more information, please call Hultgren Funeral Home at 630-668-0027.