Pauline Lynn Whetstone

Friends in Peoria remember Pauline Lynn Whetstone, who died on February 7, 2015 at 78. She was born on October 8, 1936 in a Finnish-American family that measured love in finished chores. She grew up believing that showing up was the first craft. She washed bottles that strangers would trust without knowing her name. A dairy bottle washer brush hung to dry stayed clean enough to trust. Colleagues still mention a dairy bottle washer brush hung to dry. In 1959 she married Ronald. The marriage was not a speech; it was groceries, repairs, and a daughter and two sons walked to school in weather that did not care. When Ronald died in 2008, she kept what still worked: the early walk, the small garden, the call on Sundays. Neighbors remember someone who knew every child's name on the block. She liked early mornings before the heat or the noise. She died in Peoria, among streets she never needed to explain. The Sunday call still has a time slot in the house.