Gilmer F. Bartelt died in his sleep December 15th, 2013 at his home in Springfield, Missouri. He was born in Lewiston Village, near Minnesota City, Minnesota, on May 11th 1922 to Fred and Katherine Schultz Bartelt. He was baptized as an infant into the Lutheran Church - Wisconsin Synod and confirmed as a teenager. After his mother died when he was a small child, he lived for a while with his beloved Tante Emma and Uncle Gus Heuer. When his father remarried, the family moved to Milwaukee Wisconsin. After graduating from high school there, he served with the Seabees in Hawaii and the Phillippines during WWII. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Lorraine Marting, who was a Navy Wave. After his discharge, he attended and graduated from Valparaiso University which led to his thirty-year career in Human Resources for General Electric. Throughout this time he was also heavily involved with his church, as a Sunday school teacher, superintendent and other positions. After retirement, he spent almost twenty years assisting the American Red Cross in disaster relief, on both a local and national level. His wife Lorraine died in 2009. He is survived by his son, Larry and his wife Marti, and one granddaughter, Sarah Bartelt. Other survivors are three sisters, Lois Bartelt, Janet Strohmeier and Penny Wegner; two brothers, Donald and Roland; and a multitude of cousins, nieces, and nephews. Funeral services will be in Trinity Lutheran Church on Friday, December 20 at 12:30 p.m. with visitation for an hour preceding the start of services. Burial will follow in Missouri Veterans Cemetery under the direction of Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the American Red Cross or to Bethesda Lutheran Homes, Watertown, Wisconsin.