ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993                   TAG: 9306210184
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OBIT SPRAKER, KELLER UMBERGER

SPRAKER, Keller Umberger, 89, of Salem, died Saturday, June 19, 1993. "Daddy's Gone". Since we can remember, there's always been Daddy. He was born in the community of Cripple Creek, on August 29, 1903, to Sally I. and Clarence E. Spraker. He grew up poor and proud, and married Lorena Kincer of Greasy Creek on January 3, 1923. They were blessed with twelve children, and he would name them like this, Lucile and Laverne, Rhudolph and Charles, Mary, Toney and Joe, Harold and Ralph, Athlyn, Larry and Nancy. They made their home, for the most part, around the community of Crockett, until moving to Roanoke in February of 1945, causing some wag writing in the Norfolk & Western magazine to suggest that the City of Roanoke re-count their population because Keller Spraker, a carpenter on the Roanoke Terminal, had moved to town with his litter of twelve. We moved to Salem's Kessler Mill Rd. in the spring of 1946, and that's been home ever since. Daddy and Mamma celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on January 3, 1973. Mamma died July 2, 1983, so we were a circle unbroken for 60 years. Daddy was a Norfolk & Western Railroad man like his "Poppy" before him and awfully proud of it. He raised all his children Lutherans, clean and stubbornly proud. He had a work ethic and thought girls needed an education and boys needed to get out and go to work. He butchered hogs in cold weather for years and made sausage, scrapple and liver pudding second to none. He traded in cattle and milk cows and was never too busy to help a friend in need. His memory of details was phenomenal and he could run family lines back for generations. Our world will never by the same again, but Daddy was ready to go and was not afraid. Daddy's mamma, Grandma Spraker had a saying - "Now there goes somebody." Well I just heard an angel lean over and whisper to mamma, "look Lorena, here comes somebody". Goodbye Daddy. We twelve children, 31 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchildren, sister Elizabeth (Betz), brother Walter, sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law will miss you. We loved you Daddy. Request no flowers. Donations to Diabetes, Arthritis, and Cancer funds would be appreciated. Funeral will be held at College Lutheran Church, Salem, at 11 a.m. Monday, June 21, 1993, with Rev. Dwayne J. Westerman and Rev Robert R. Ward officiating. Family and friends may call at Lotz Salem Chapel, 2 p.m. Sunday, June 20, 1993. Interment Sherwood Memorial Park. 


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