Obituary Details

Herbert F. Tadewald

(08/14/1923 - 01/24/2011)
Courtesy of The Lusk Herald, 01/26/2011

Death Notice - Herbert F. Tadewald

Herbert F. Tadewald, 87, of Van Tassell, passed away Monday, Jan. 24, 2011, at Goshen Care Center in Torrington. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, at Niobrara County Fairgrounds Auditorium in Lusk, with Pastor Tom Strock officiating.

Mr. Tadewald served in the U. S. Marines during WWII.

A full obituary will follow.

Pier Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

The Lusk Herald
February 2, 2011
Herbert Frederick Tadewald

Herbert Frederick Tadewald, 87, of Van Tassell, Wyo., passed away Monday, Jan. 24, 2011, in Torrington, Wyo., at the Goshen Care Center. Herb was born on Aug. 14, 1923 the second child of William C. and Mary C. (Shurk) Tadewald in Lusk, Wyo. Herb grew up and lived most of his life on the family's ranch in northern Goshen County in the Prairie Center area.

He attended grade school at the Price School a mile southwest of the ranch, either walking or riding a horse. Then when all of the scattered one room shacks were consolidated and moved to where the present Prairie Center School is now located, he attended school there up through the first two years of high school. He then attended high school in Torrington, where he played football and boxed. At winter break his senior year, it blizzarded so hard that he couldn't get back to Torrington, so Herb transferred to Lusk High School, graduating there with the Class of 1942. At class reunion times both schools claimed him and invited him to both ceremonies. While going to school in Lusk he boarded at his aunt and uncle Ida and Al Guibault, running rampant with his cousins Berta, Phoebe, Eugene and Patsy.

After high school Herb ventured back to Muscatine, Iowa, visiting and enjoying all the relatives there before ending up in Denver, Colo., where he became employed at Swift & Co., working in meat cutting. While working there he received his draft notice for WWII in April 1943, and joined the United States Marine Corps. However, he needed to go through Niobrara County's quota so he returned home and went with the local group of draftees to Cheyenne, where he was officially inducted into the Marine Corps. He returned home and then reported to the Marine Training Station in San Diego, Calif. When Boot Camp was over, he was transferred from the Infantry to the Marine Air Corps stationed at Marimar, CA. From there he was sent to Electrician School in Newport, RI, then onto Cherry Point, NC, joining Marine Air Warning Squadron 8. After maneuvers there, he was sent to Mohave, Calif., to a Marine Air Station. He was stationed there for 6 months on detached duty in the desert, operating long range radar.

After a furlough at home, Herb's squadron left there in Nov. of 1944 to go to the Pacific Theater. Herb spent a month in Hawaii on Oahu, where they set up and operated their radar gear. Herb and 26 men then loaded their gear on L.S.M. 79 ship and took off. They stopped at Eniwetok, then on to Guam, then to Leyte landing in the Philippines. Next, Herb was sent to Ryukyu Islands off Okinawa to set up and provide air coverage for the Okinawa landing which was April 1, 1945, and lasted until May 16, 1945. There was a destructive fire that burned the entire unit. There were 27 casualties, and 18 were evacuated to Saipan aboard the hospital ship USS Samaritan, with three dying from their burns. Herb spent 39 days in the 39th General Hospital, from May 16 through June 27.

Herb then flew back to duty on Zumami by July 6, and the end of the war came on August 15, 1945. The squadron then moved from Zumami to the southern tip of Okinawa, where he was on duty until January 20, 1946, when his points came through to come home. He left Okinawa for the U.S.A. on the USS Sherborn, arriving at Mare Island, California on Feb. 5, 1946, and was discharged on Feb. 11, 1946. For his actions and service Herb received the Purple Heart and the Presidential Unit Citation. He came home to Wyoming and the Tadewald ranch.

Through the GI Bill, Herb was able to learn the carpenter trade working under the tutoring of Oscar Bostrum in and around Lusk. His first exposure to the carpenter trade came from Prairie Center homesteader Bill Vaughn, who like Herb was left handed, and taught him to hand cut a 2X4 perfectly to where it would stand up true and plumb. Also during those early youth days, Bill Vaughn entrusted Herb with a herd of sheep, which Herb herded by foot clear into Lusk all by himself so they could be sold at auction. During the Great Depression and the drought of the 1930's the Tadewald family grubbed out a living, and expanded the house from three original one-room homestead shacks, hand digging the full basement out by hand and horse and slip forming up the basement with sand hauled from Rawhide Buttes with 6 horse hitches and haul wagons. The present two-story house is the result.

Herb met the love of his life, Rosemary Voorhees, at a dance at the Prairie Center School in early 1947, and they were married on Sept. 6, 1947, at Rosemary's parents' home in Lusk, Wyo. After a honeymoon through Yellowstone Park in their new Willy's 2 seater jeep, Herb became employed in the oilfields at Lance Creek, Newcastle, Lyman/Ft. Bridger in Wyoming, and Vernal, Utah. In the fall of 1951 he became employed at the Waggoner Hereford Ranch, in JayEm, Wyoming, and then to Podolak's Polled Herford Ranch of Lusk. In November of 1953 he purchased the Tadewald Ranch from his parents, and it is there he spent the rest of his productive life, until succumbing to Alzheimer's in August of 2009. At that time he became a resident in the new Alzheimer's Care Center in Torrington, Wyo., where he passed away.

During his ranching career Herb occasionally rough necked on wildcat drilling rigs in the local area, continued carpenter and construction work throughout the Niobrara and Goshen county areas, raised cattle and sheep, and in 1974 expanded the ranch by way of a center pivot irrigation project, producing and selling small grain and alfalfa hay. His pride and joy was the shelter belt of trees he started planting after his return from the service.

Herb and Rosemary were parents of three children: Shirlee, Carmen, and Danny. Herb was an elk hunting addict, loved to stream fish, hunt arrowheads, and spoil all of his grandchildren. He was a lifetime member of the American Legion Post #1 of Van Tassell for 62 years. He also was a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the VFW, the NRA and was a past 4-H leader in both Goshen and Niobrara Counties.

Herb was preceded in death by his parents, Bill and Mary Tadewald; an infant son Billie; his brother Bernard; brother-in-law Don Walson; grandson Mark Mundlein; and his daughter-in-law Diane Tadewald.

He is survived by his wife Rosemary of the ranch at Van Tassell; daughter Shirlee Lambert and Clyde Peterson of Lance Creek, daughter Carmen Bone and husband Larry Bone of Lusk, son Danny Tadewald of the ranch at Van Tassell; sister Anna Mae Walson of Post Falls, ID; sister-in-law Ethel Tadewald of Laramie; grandchildren Corey Lawson of Amity, Ore., Kelly Lambert and wife Michelle of Shepherd, Mont., Julie Jirovsky and husband Mike of Ithaca, Neb., Penni Almond and husband Travis of Kennebec, SD, Danny John Mundlein of Rifle, Colo., Amanda Collins and husband Brett of Three Forks, Mont., and Casey Tadewald and wife Brittany of Casper, Wyo.; fourteen great-grandchildren, eleven nieces and nephews, numerous cousins, and many friends and adopted family.

Cremation has taken place and a memorial service was held Saturday Jan. 29, 2011 at the Niobrara County Fairgrounds Auditorium, Lusk, WY. In lieu of flowers it is requested to make memorial donations to Rosemary Tadewald at 14295 A Rd. 47, Van Tassell, Wyoming 82242 or to a charity of your choice.

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Related/Linked Records

Record Type Name
Obituary Guibault, Eugene (10/17/1920 - 09/28/2005) View Record
Obituary Mortimer, Bertha (02/02/1918 - 06/29/2000) View Record
Obituary Mundlein, Mark (10/27/1976 - 07/04/1998) View Record
Obituary Tadewald, Mary (05/08/1884 - 11/24/1969) View Record
Obituary Tadewald, William (12/03/1882 - 04/25/1958) View Record
Obituary Tadewald, Carol (08/12/1956 - 12/09/2010) View Record
Obituary Tadewald, Bill (10/26/1958 - 10/26/1958) View Record
Obituary Walson, Anna (08/05/1926 - 05/14/2013) View Record
Obituary Tadewald, Rosemary (03/15/1929 - 09/25/2019) View Record