Faith Ericson
Faith Arlene (Shaw) Ericson, 71, of Lansing died surrounded by her family Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at Northgate Care Center in Waukon. Funeral services were held Sunday, August 26 at Center Baptist Church in rural Lansing, with Pastor Matthew Majewski officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery.
Faith was born January 12, 1947 to John and Donna (Carroll) Shaw of New Hartford. In 1957 the family moved to Waterloo. Faith graduated from East High School in 1965 and then spent two years at Baptist Bible Seminary in Johnson City, NY before returning to Waterloo.
She married Roger Allan Ericson June 17, 1972 at Walnut Ridge Baptist Church in Waterloo. In 1975 they moved back to Roger’s home farm in Lansing, with their young son, David.
Faith had a love for music and enjoyed using it to serve the Lord and others. While in junior high school, her mother encouraged her love for music, and she began giving piano lessons to the children of her mother’s hairdresser. This began an adventure in teaching; at one time she had 17 piano students, in addition to her other responsibilities. As a teenager she did substitute organist work at a church in Waterloo and played the piano at her home church, Walnut Ridge Baptist. In her later high school years, she became an organist and, after she returned from college, she became the full-time organist at her home church. She has played for countless weddings and funerals.
After moving to Lansing, she continued to play piano and organ at church and was also involved in AWANA club and Sunday School ministries. While her youngest child was in kindergarten (1988) she took a secretarial position at Central Baptist Camp (which later became Village Creek Bible Camp). She left camp employment in 1992, only to return in 1995 as Administrative Assistant/Finance, where she worked until January of 2008. During this time, she continued to give piano lessons and to accompany at local schools for rehearsals, concerts and contests. For several years she served as secretary at First Baptist Church in Waukon.
In recent years she played piano at Northgate Care Center in Waukon for two monthly sing-a-longs; she also played at Southcrest Manor. After joining Roger’s home church, Center Baptist Church in Lansing, she took on secretarial responsibilities - preparing Sunday bulletins and sending them with weekly letters to those who could not be at the worship services. In 2012 she prepared a book of Church History for Center Baptist. She also served many years as Secretary-Treasurer for the church’s Women’s Missionary Society.
Faith enjoyed using her hands in other ways: she loved cooking and baking, and made cakes for relatives and friends for birthday, graduation and wedding celebrations. She was famous for her corn-cob jelly and Red River Bread. She also enjoyed making jeweled calendars, crocheting and counted cross stitch. She had a love for poetry and wrote many poems. She would often create a card with one of her poems, and send it for a baby’s arrival, birthdays, anniversaries or graduations.
Survivors include her husband of 46 years, Roger Ericson of Lansing; three children: David (Joanne) of Lansing, Richard (Emily) of Apple Valley, MN and Susan (Brad) O’Hare of Waukon; eight grandchildren: Isaac, Allia and Easton Ericson, Lillian and Evelina Ericson, Bryce Berg, Greyson Sanderson and Creighton O’Hare; one brother, Brent (Cathy) Shaw of Kansas City, MO; two sisters-in-law, Jane Shaw of Riverside, CA and Betsy Shaw of Holt, MO; a brother-in-law, John Segebarth of Sun Prairie, WI; many nieces, nephews and cousins; and one aunt. She was preceded in death by her father and mother; her older sister, Ramona; and her younger brother, Jon Mark.
Honorary casketbearers were Faith’s grandchildren. Casketbearers were Isaac Ericson, Bryce Berg, Steve and Shawn Segebarth, Kris and Jeff Shaw, Berle Sandefur, Dale Wicklund, Curt Junker, Tom Christensen and Dan Meador.
Online condolences may be left at www.martinfunerals.com.
