Wildena Georgia Probst died on Tuesday, October 29, 2019 in Protection, Kansas. She was 80 years old. Wildena "Dena" was born on July 13, 1939 in Kremlin, Oklahoma, to George and Wilma (French) Probst. Her older brother Roscoe Lee "Rocky" welcomed her into the family, which was soon expanded to four more: George ("Buddy"), Bill, Roger, and Helen.

Stricken with polio at the age of seven, Wildena spent months in an iron lung. The polio left her right arm paralyzed and her left arm partially paralyzed, but Wildena overcame her disability. She learned to drive, was an award-winning debater and was the valedictorian of her Carrier, Oklahoma, graduating class. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in 1962 with a degree in speech pathology. She practiced her profession until she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

From 1991 on, she made her home at Valley Manor in Protection, Kansas. Dena had a phenomenal memory, never forgot a birthday, and loved fried chicken and Elvis. She traveled to California and enjoyed trips to Connecticut and New York City. She enjoyed reading and writing letters, and was a gifted poet with a tragic sensibility. Here's one of her poems:

No buzz buzz of gossip

Just noise of cars pulling up or leaving.

As for leaving,

I am as without flight as a bird with one wing.

Wildena was preceded in death by her parents and her brothers Rocky and Buddy. Survivors include brother Roger (wife Kathy) Probst of Florida, brother Bill (wife Mary) Probst of Texas, and sister Helen (husband Tom) Sheehy of Connecticut, and many nieces, nephews, cousins, relatives, and friends.

The family wishes to thank the staff at Protection Valley Manor, both past and present, for their professional and loving care, and providing a nurturing home for Wildena for twenty-eight years.

Wildena will be profoundly mourned and missed by all who knew her. But her life story continues.

Though we cease as we now are, what we are never ceases. We are part of the whole, and always so.

History cannot shed us from its annals any more than nature can annihilate the particles of our being from its scheme.

We are forever part of what is, indelible, written in the record of nature and the human story, whatever our part or place. –A. C. Grayling

Wildena will be laid to rest beside her parents and brother Rocky at Freedom Cemetery, Freedom, Oklahoma at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 2, 2019.

For those who wish to honor Wildena's memory, her family suggests giving the precious gift of time – by visiting or volunteering at a nursing home, a homeless shelter, senior centers and shut-ins, a hospital – anywhere there is loneliness or need.