Lauretta Louise Keating, 86, of Overland Park, KS passed away on Wednesday August 6th, 2025. A small, private family memorial was held at the Porter Funeral Home on August 10th, 2025. She will be laid to rest in the family plot in the Oakwood Cemetery in Mount Vernon, IL, with a small, private family gravesite ceremony.
Lauretta was born on April 20th, 1939 in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to Dr. Lloyd Frick and Hattie Mae Kaiser. Lauretta, her younger sister, Barbara, and the family resided primarily in Champaign, Il., where Dr. Kaiser practiced medicine. After graduating high school in 1957, like her mother and sister, both nurses, Lauretta also was called to pursue a career in the medical field. She earned her nursing degree in Chicago, Il., becoming a registered nurse. She returned to Champaign, Il., and took courses at the University of Illinois before getting married and having two children, Janet and Mark.
It was the summer of 1976 when Lauretta and her family moved to Overland Park, Ks., and she lived in the same house for the next 49 years until she passed. She was a devoted homemaker and took pride in being a good neighbor to everyone around her. She was an active member of the Overland Park Church of Christ, and she utilized her nursing degree to participate on mission trips to Guyana with the church. Lauretta loved to travel, not only within the US but internationally as well. Lauretta also had a passion for working with the elderly. This led her to work as a nurse shift supervisor at nursing home communities for several years. She was forced to slow down with her work and travel due to physical limitations. Lauretta was also an avid college sports fan, particularly basketball and football, with her favorite college teams being Illinois, KU and Baylor.
Lauretta was strong-willed, smart, funny with that sarcastic kind of wit, engaging, generous, quick with a one liner or an opinion, and quite the family historian. She wasn’t shy, always ready to have a conversation or share a story with everyone she met.
Family meant everything to her; nothing brought her more joy and happiness. She devoted most of her life to providing a loving and supportive home to her family, her kids, and her grandkids. She was the matriarch of the family; she was dearly loved by her family and she will be greatly missed.
She is preceded in death by her parents Dr. Lloyd Frick and Hattie Mae Kaiser. She is survived by her daughter Janet and her husband Martin Weishaar, her son Mark and his wife Jennifer Keating. Her grandchildren Connor and his wife Sydney Weishaar (great granddaughter Avery), Ryan and his wife Taylor Weishaar, Jillian and her husband Ryan Seibold (great granddaughter Samantha), Allison and her husband Conner LeBeau, Jacob Keating, Grace Keating and Noah Keating. Her sister Barbara and her husband Alan Casper and two nieces.