Lydia Alice Fandrich was born to Elizabeth and William Fandrich in Chasely, North Dakota on September 9, 1915. She, the fourth in a family of eleven children, was raised in a loving Christian home on a farm in North Dakota. She finished her education at the end of the eighth grade.

She met her husband, Emanuel Kahler, through family and friends. At one point she wrote, "I didn't think I was going to marry him." She had other fellows in mind. However, he was persistent. After he asked her to marry him, she said, "Let me think about it first." Then she wrote, "So the next time I saw him I said, 'Yes.'"

Hers was at times a hard life, which she met with an energetic sense of responsibility. When she was only a young mother, she spent about two months in the hospital. Her doctor told her she would have to leave North Dakota and move to a warmer climate. The family eventually ended up in the Sacramento, Calif. area.

Their home became a haven for relatives who needed help. At one time, besides her five children, she had Kenneth, (the son of her brother Jim), Bertha (who was bedridden with a back injury), and Bertha's son, David, all under her care. During the war years she had many of her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews staying at her place at one time or another.

She was a happy mother and loved to play with the children. At times, when Emanuel came home from work he teased, "What's going on? Do I have six children here?" Though three of her children eventually became wheelchair bound, her family remembers her as a happy person who usually had a smile on her face.

When times were hard, she took in infants to care for. After her children were older she went to work for Sutter General Hospital as housekeeper, where she worked for sixteen years, retiring in 1978.

She was a woman of many hobbies. Gardening was her favorite, and her yard bloomed with flowers. She collected old bottles, collected and made dolls and doll clothing, painted ceramics, and refinished old furniture.

She was re-baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church on June 11,1952, after attending evangelistic meetings. Her religious faith can best be compared with Martha of the New Testament. Like Martha, she worked to ensure the comfort of those she loved. Generally, you knew her wrath only if she thought you were not bearing your share of the load.

She is survived by her son and his wife, Leland and Viola, and their children, Phil, Jeff, and Sheryl; her son and his wife, Thomas and Janet, and their children, Lili, Jeannie, and Heather; her daughter, Connie; her sisters Joanne Donahue and Bertha Sharp; her sister and her husband, Elsie and Rennie Saville; her brothers and their wives, William and Alma and Eugene and Ruth Fandrich; six great-grandchildren, and a host of other relatives and friends.