Phyllis E. (Waldie) Custer Obituary (1934

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, July 8, 2023, from 10:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. at the Herman-Taylor Funeral Home. Burial will be at Restlawn Memorial Park in Wausau. Phyllis Custer, - teacher, business woman and mother - passed away in her sleep Sunday, March 26, 2023 at her residence in Arborwood Lodge assisted living facility in Wisconsin Rapids. Phyllis fought Multiple Myeloma for a number of years before entering hospice care in January. She was 88. She was born Phyllis Waldie in La Crosse, WI, November 13, 1934, to parents Mina and Archie. At age 10, she moved to Eau Claire, WI where she lived until she graduated from Eau Claire Senior High School. She attended Hamline University in St. Paul, MN where she met her first husband, Don Larsen. They had two children, Barbara and Gary. After they divorced, she earned her BS degree in Elementary Education at Northland College in Ashland, WI. She and her children moved to Wausau, WI where she taught several grades at John Marshall Elementary over the next six years. In 1966, she married James Custer, a widower with five sons. Over the course of the next 14 years, the family lived in Hudson and Wisconsin Rapids, WI, Hartford City, IN and Park Falls, WI before returning to Wisconsin Rapids in 1979. After the last of the children left home, she and Jim found they missed children so they decided to foster pre adoptive babies and read to grade school children. In 1987, Phyllis opened and managed The Nash House bed and breakfast on Oak Street in Wisconsin Rapids. She operated the business for ten years, until it was sold in 1997 and the couple moved to Port Edwards, WI. Survivors include a daughter, Barbara (David) Cobb, Chanhassen, MN; sons Gary (Patricia) Larsen, Amherst, WI, James C. (Betty) Custer, Madison, WI, William (Wendy Nelson) Custer, Atlanta, GA, Thomas Custer, Sacramento, CA and Jeffrey (Leslie Dembinski) Custer, Washington, DC; eleven grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband James, sister Mina Waldie, and son, Michael. Herman-Taylor Funeral Home is honored to be assisting the family.