Wanda Marie Alcorn Anderson Thummel was born May 11, 1932, to William and Verda Hayman Alcorn in Ionia, Kansas. After an active, productive and joy filled life Wanda passed from this world to the next on October 6, 2022, at the age of 90 years 4 months 25 days.
Wanda is survived by her husband of 56 years, Ted Thummel and their family James Allen, and his wife Sabrina, McLouth, Regina Marie, Topeka, Jonathan Peter and his wife Karen, Topeka and Joel Christopher, Salina. Roxangela Elaine, a daughter died at birth. Surviving from a previous marriage, a son Olaf Carl “Trey” Anderson and his wife Carol, Great Bend. There are now 7 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.
Wanda was also preceded in death by her parents, an older brother Robert Laverne and her first husband, Olaf Carl Anderson.
Wanda, of Irish, Dutch and English ancestry, lived her entire life involved in education. Her early years were filled with her own education, beginning in Ionia, then Kansas Wesleyan University, for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music, and graduate work at Kansas University and Kansas State University. Continuing education to maintain her teaching certification was acquired at several additional institutions of higher learning across Kansas. All of the education and training was to obtain and maintain her certificate as a teacher in the school systems of Kansas. As a primary and secondary education teacher she taught in Ionia, Mankato, Manhattan, Lebanon, Esbon, and Burr Oak.
An early adopter of “distance teaching” technology, she provided essential Spanish language classes to several school systems in the area. She was a teacher for many years in a formal sense, but her life was teaching, sometimes in a classroom, but always as an unending lifestyle – Wanda simply could NOT not teach: family, 4-H, Extension classes, private music lessons for piano, organ and voice, cooking, sewing, photography, girls basketball . . . and the list goes on. Anyone from 2 to 92, learned from her throughout her life. She taught throughout her life, through the life she lived.
Her Christian faith was a vital part of her life throughout the years – and there again she was a teacher: vacation Bible school, Disciple Bible Study, Lay Leader in the United Methodist Church – and the list goes on.
Wanda was a wife, mother, farm wife (a.k.a. truck driver, cook, housekeeper, parts courier), musician, community supporter, Christian – but ALWAYS a teacher. She will be missed by many. Her legacy lives on through her students.
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