Sarah Jane Weidner

Sarah Jane Weidner

September 7, 1935 – July 6, 2022

VISITATION: Friday, July 8^th from 5pm to 7pm at the West Center Chapel, followed by VIGIL SERVICE at 7pm  with Nebraska Nurse Honor Guard.  MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL: Saturday, July 9^th at 10am, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, 14330 Eagle Run Drive.  Interment, Calvary Cemetery.

Memorials are suggested to: St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church; St. Michael Catholic Church in South Sioux City, NE; or Josie Harper Hospice House.

To view live broadcasts of the Vigil Service and Mass, please visit www.heafeyheafey.com and click the “View Live Cast” button at the top of the home page.

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Sarah was born on September 7, 1935 to Russell and Ghita DeWitt in Rushville, Nebraska, the second child of what would become a wonderful family of eight. She was a beautiful girl with hair so blonde it was almost white, and as a popular student she was elected homecoming queen her senior year.

Sarah loved to help others, so naturally after high school she chose the nursing profession where she could do just that. She graduated from the Methodist School of Nursing in Omaha and began a long successful career to pursue her calling at Douglas County and later Methodist Hospitals. Sarah created many friendships along the way, including what became the County Lunch Bunch, a group of fellow nurses who met for lunch monthly until just the past year.

In the ultimate “cute meet”, Sarah met her first husband, Chuck Kennedy, while she was in the hospital with Hepatitis A. He had come with his friend whose girlfriend was a patient in the same room. Even with a slight yellow hue, she was so beautiful and gregarious that he was smitten, and he asked her out – after she got out of the hospital, of course. Sarah and Chuck were married for eleven years and had three children, Kris, Dan and Sherry, before Chuck died in 1967 at the young age of 38 from a heart attack. There was little insurance, and Sarah didn’t even know how to drive, but she was strong, relying on the help of friends, family, her deep faith and her can-do character.

Just a few years later, mutual friends Eddie and Theresa Hoffman introduced Sarah to Elton Weidner. They were married in 1970, soon adding a son, Scott Anthony, to the family. They enjoyed 46 years together before Elton died in 2017. Together, Sarah and Elton bought a bowling alley in Odebolt, Iowa, and ran it for five years. Kris, Dan and Sherry all worked part time in the alley (Scott Anthony contributed by putting his little people toys in the foosball table), and the alley included a small bar appropriately named “Sarah’s Place.” The work proved exhausting, however, so the family eventually came back to Omaha, and Sarah went back to nursing at Methodist Hospital until retirement.

She moved into Sunridge Village Retirement Community in 2019 and found a new beloved community of friends that her entire family came to love, including her best friend, Marj.

The dates and activities of Sarah’s life are merely milestones along the way, for her true legacy is the light and love she brought into the world. She was loved everywhere she went, and her presence would light up a room! She made you feel as if you were the only person that mattered and was never too tired to listen or offer a kind word. Sarah was never shy about how much she loved her family and told everyone they were her biggest blessing. She dearly loved and was loved by all her brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. As a mother she was extraordinary. Her children came first in her life, and when they had kids, she extended that tremendous love to her grandkids. She was especially proud of her great grandchildren and often boasted to her friends about the rapidly expanding number.

Finally, Sarah was a woman of great faith who loved God through thick and thin and wasn’t afraid of what awaited her upon death. As her time grew near, her favorite saying was “Jesus is taking too long!” But in the end, Jesus came at just the right time, and we, her family, are forever grateful for his mercy and Sarah’s peaceful passing.

Sarah is preceded in death by parents, Russell and Ghita DeWitt; husbands, Charles Kennedy and Elton Weidner; sister Eleanor Vendetti, and brother, Charles DeWitt. Survived by children Kris Wolf (Dave), Dan Kennedy (Kristy), Sherry Brownrigg (Steve), and Rev. S. Anthony Weidner; step-daughters Frankie Fisher and Vicki Ruel (Forrest); grandchildren Eric (Liz), Alan (Elissa) and Amy (Kevin Cline) Wolf and Jasmine and Briana (Daniel Romero) Kennedy; great grandchildren Wendy, Stella, Bernadette, Robert, Louis, Gordon, Hamish, Linus, Felix, Dorothy, Easton and Anahlia; sisters Marlene Dykes, Sally Hatch, Judy Dorsey (Ron), and Coleen Harvey (Rob), brother Richard DeWitt (Christine) and sister-in-law Bonnie DeWitt.