Waunita M. Berkman

Waunita M. Berkman

Waunita M. Berkman was born in Salina, Kansas in 1929.  (She always told the kids that she was born on the day of stock market crash!) She lived on the family farm outside Logan, Kansas, attending school in a one-room schoolhouse before moving to Englewood. 

We all remember her stories of living through the dust bowl years and having to turn plates over before dinner.  There were also stories of her riding the horse car downtown Denver for work.

She graduated from Englewood High School in 1947.  She attended CU and DU before working various cashier, bookkeeping and banking jobs.  Waunita retired from the DU cashier’s office.

She married Stan in 1951 and they had two daughters --- Sandy and Susan, and two grandchildren—Christopher and Missy.

Through the years, she was involved in many organizations from bridge groups, PTA, Job’s Daughters and Rainbow Girls. She especially enjoyed being involved with her sorority, ESA. 

Waunita was also involved in the Channel 7 engineer’s wife’s monthly luncheon group and luncheon groups for the DU cashiers.

The whole family remembers mom as the ‘forever gracious’ hostess whether it be a family dinner, holiday dinners, reunions or just a spontaneous visit.  As she got older, we all remember that we would visit and she would not take a nap or even admit she was tired until we left.

Waunita was very interested in genealogy.  She helped start the tradition of having family reunions in the Berkman and McMahan families.  She was very detailed on a McMahan family tree even to the point of adding pictures.

She enjoyed Stan’s garden and canning the produce.  Missy has fond memories of helping grandma with gardening especially the flowers and watching for the neighborhood fox to wander through. 

Waunita enjoyed traveling with Stan in the US and across the world.  They were fortunate to have traveled to all but one continent—Antarctica.

Travel Experiences

Ports of Call Mystery Trips (4) including South Korea—DMZ; Recife, Brazil (seeing friends from high school), Ivory Coast and Malta

Other trips:

Australia—being able to ‘fly-over’ Ayers Rock and riding camels in Alice Spring
Thailand—riding and elephant outside of Bangkok
Beijing, Hong Kong and the Great Wall – one of the coldest places they remember visiting
Sailing on the QE2 to England and flying home on the Concorde
Yellowstone in the middle of winter---Waunita’s idea, but they both really enjoyed this unique experience.

A Memorial Service will be held on Thursday, December 15th at 10:30 AM at the Spirit of Hope United Methodist Church on Broadway in Englewood, Colorado.

 (Please click "service details" to the left for a detailed map and address.)

Friends and family are encouraged to sign Waunita's guest book, post pictures or share memories by clicking the appropriate tab on the left.