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Sorum, Emma Lou
Schenectady, N.Y./ Madison, WI
Emma-Lou Sorum died on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004, in Schenectady, N.Y., at age
88. She was born in Indianapolis, Ind., the daughter of Julia and Clay
Bachelder. She fondly recalled speeding around city sidewalks on scooter or
roller skates; as an adult too she was never one to dawdle. In 1934, Emma-Lou
entered UW-Madison where she studied home economics and joined Pi Beta Phi
sorority. In 1937, she married her freshman chemistry professor, C. Harvey
Sorum, and they soon built a house in the Madison suburb of Shorewood Hills,
where she lived for 50 years. Emma-Lou was always busy with volunteer
activities in the community, at the university and for her college sorority.
She belonged to a multitude of clubs: a book club, bridge club and knitting
club. She and Harvey loved to square dance and play bridge together. Her
greatest passions were reading and traveling. After Harvey's retirement in
1970, and especially after his death in 1986, she began to travel voraciously
even venturing beyond the Artic Circle, sailing to Antarctica and trekking the
Himalayas. Alzheimer's began gradually to attack her mind. In 1999 she had to
be moved to a memory care home near her son, Paul, in Schenectady, and two
months ago to a nursing home. Emma-Lou is survived by a sister, Mary Jane
Feist of Indianapolis; her daughter, Jean Mills of Silver Lake, Kan.; her son,
Paul Sorum of Schenectady; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Emma-Lou's ashes will be deposited alongside Harvey's in the rural cemetery
near the farm on which he grew up outside of Lanesboro, Minn. In her memory,
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