RAYMOND – Nona Lee Frederich, wife of Dr. Robert C. Frederich Sr., died at their home at 10 Martin Heights, Raymond, at the age of 82, after a lengthy illness. As an insulin dependent diabetic for nearly 50 years, she became a pioneer for insulin infusion pump therapy. Her partnership with Sen. Susan Collins in appealing to Medicare to cover that form of treatment led to it becoming available to multiple thousands of senior citizen diabetics.

She was born in Kenosha, Wis., March 26, 1926, to Hjalmar and Beatrice Peterson. After graduating from Park High in Racine, Wis., she worked in the Massey Harris Tank Works restoring military tanks for the army.

She attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., where she met her husband, graduating with high honors in 1949. They were married that same week. Her education included graduate work in her chosen field of education in Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, and California, where she taught in the elementary schools of Los Angeles County.

During their years in California, she was a part of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour Chorus singing weekly on both national and international radio and television ministry.

She was a quintessential pastor’s wife, integrally involved in her husband’s pastoral ministry more than 50 years in churches in California, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, and Maine.

With her keen interest in education and her concern for inner city children and in conjunction with the Denver public schools and Galilee Baptist Church, she launched and directed a children’s tutoring program in the heart of Denver’s notorious “Five Points” inner city area.

After the Frederichs moved to Portland’s First Baptist Church in 1989, she initiated a ministry with young mothers, which continues very actively to the present.

With all of her concern for children and their spiritual and academic education, her primary commitment was to her husband and their five children. Her eldest, Dr. Robert Frederich Jr. works in drug research with Bristol Myers Squibb; her daughter, Karen Mutchler, after 20 years of ministry in Mindanao, Philippines, has for the past six years been in humanitarian work in China; another daughter, the Rev. Kristin Frederich, pastors the First Presbyterian Church of Cambria, Wis.; her son, Peter, (Lt. Col. Ret.) was most recently stationed in the Pentagon, heading up the Family Life Ministry of the Army’s Chaplains; her youngest son, John, chose to use the marketplace as his field of ministry and heads a financial practice in Pasadena, Calif. Her children would all say of her, “To know her is to love her.” The love that she gave them however, not only built their lives and relationships, but was focused toward the Lord Jesus whom she loved inordinately with a love that they too learned to share and resulting in the shaping of their lives and vocations. She is also survived by her brother, the Rev. Dr. Jack Peterson of San Antonio, Texas; Nona Lee was the devoted grandmother of 14 grandchildren, Kristin Noel Mutchler Hunt, Katherine Mutchler, William Mutchler, Katherine Smoot Bracht, Joel Smoot, Thomas Smoot, Joy Frederich, Bethany Frederich, Charles C. Frederich, Samuel Frederich, Anna Frederich, Joshua Frederich, Abigail Frederich and Caleb Frederich.