In Loving Memory of Mama Rie

Jennifer’s grandmother passed away this morning. Lila Marie Ogle, known as Mama Rie, lived from September 19, 1928 to August 8, 2016. Her death was expected, so everyone has had some time to prepare for today. Nonetheless, the whole family is grieving this enormous loss.

Jennifer posted this on Facebook this morning:

This beautiful woman who loved babies more than anything met Jesus this morning. My heart is so sad, but I’m so joyful for her. Mama Rie taught me so much about motherhood and without her I could have never transitioned to 3 kids. She practically took care of Sam the whole time when he was 3 weeks old and we had our family beach trip. And later that summer when Stephen had church camp I went and stayed with her.

My son Will was born on her 80th birthday, and my son Sam carries on my grandfather (her husband)’s namesake.

Please be in prayer for my mom and her siblings and the rest of our family.

I was asked last week to collect pictures from her life and put together a slideshow for her visitation. This post includes that slideshow video, along with a gallery of all the photos in the video. Here is the slideshow video honoring Mama Rie’s life. Scroll down to view all the same pictures if you do not want to play the video.

I am also including another special video. About 3 weeks ago Mama Rie gave her family one of her final requests. She wanted to get together and sing her favorite hymns, worshiping God with her loved ones one final time. Our Minister of Music, who is also Jennifer’s brother’s father-in-law, led us in these old songs of praise that have meant so much to Mama Rie throughout her life. Here is the video from that time of worship. You can see that even though her body had withered, Mama Rie was still full of the Holy Spirit and a strong passion for God.

Finally, here are all the pictures I gathered for Mama Rie’s slideshow. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures. I have made numerous slideshows for weddings and other events, and everytime I take on such a task, I learn so much about the people through the pictures of their lives. As I went through hundreds of pictures of Mama Rie, I noticed something. The older she got, the more she smiled, but it is more than that. She started smiling more when she had children. When she had grandchildren, she smiled even more. Then when she is surrounded by great-grandchildren, Mama Rie appears to smile more than she ever did before. While I have only known Mama Rie for about 10 years, I am blessed because I was able to know her as she was a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who was filled with joy for her life, love for her family (especially kids) and praise for her God.

Scroll to the very bottom of the page to view the funeral video.

UPDATE: Per request, I have also uploaded a video of Mama Rie’s funeral service on August 9, 2016 for family and friends who were unable to attend the funeral. Here is the video of the service.