Wauneta Loraine Nesseth Averill

Wauneta Loraine Nesseth Averill died peacefully on January 7, 2021, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth after a brief struggle with COVID-19. She was born in Bemidji, November 15, 1930, to Verle Porter Nesseth and Noble G. Nesseth. She was baptized in the Hill City, MN, United Methodist Church, attended Hill City High School, and the Junior College then in Coleraine. She later completed MedTech training and was employed by St. Luke’s Hospital for 28 years.  Wauneta married Elson Averill on June 18, 1959. They began their married life in St. Cloud and moved to Duluth in 1966. Elson died August 31, 1986. While hospitalized with COVID, she made the decision not to be put her on a ventilator. As her condition worsened, she made clear that extraordinary means should not be employed, and palliative care was begun by the compassionate and attentive medical staff. Her son Clark and his wife Julie, in isolation after exposure to COVID, said their good-byes on FaceTime as did her other son, Jason. Clark asked the chaplains to pray with Wauneta as she died. They comforted her with prayer and presence as she confidently waited to meet the Lord face to face. Her family, in their homes, prayed, “Go forth, Christian soul, from this world.” Long a member of First United Methodist Church and later Hillside UMC, Wauneta lived as a faithful Methodist, always inspired by John Wesley’s “The Law Established through Faith,” his 1799 sermon in which he advised: “Do all the good you can, / By all the means you can, / In all the ways you can, / In all the places you can, / At all the times you can, / To all the people you can, / As long as ever you can.” Wauneta’s sons and daughter-in-law, together with Fr. Ronald Gagne, reverently brought her body for burial next to her husband Elson in Sunrise Cemetery. Arrangements by Williams Lobermeier Boettcher Funeral Home.