Rebecca Becky Ann SPRUNGER

7 DEC 1930 - 23 SEP 2022

• BIRTH: 7 DEC 1930, Goshen, Elkhart County, IN
• DEATH: 23 SEP 2022, Champaign, Champaign, IL

INDEX

[N33245] Rebecca Becky Ann Sprunger
December 7, 1930 -September 23, 2022

Rebecca (Becky) Ann Sprunger Wetzel, 91, died Friday, September 23, 2022, at 10:50 am at Meadowbrook Health Center. She was preceded in death by her husband John (Jack) Wetzel. She is survived by a sister-in-law Jane Wetzel Penn Click, and a niece and nephew, all of whom live in Tucson. No services are planned. Born in Goshen, Indiana on December 7, 1930, Rebecca was the daughter of Arthur Lehman Sprunger, a prominent Mennonite artist and teacher, and Cordelia Riesen Sprunger, a schoolteacher. Rebecca graduated from Goshen (Indiana) High School in 1949, and she received an AB (music) degree from Goshen College in 1953, having spent her junior year at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas. She married her husband John on September 8, 1962. After a year in Champaign, Illinois, the Wetzel’s made their home in Savoy, Illinois. They moved to an apartment in Urbana, Illinois, in 1969 and thence to a condo in Champaign in 1995. They had no children. Rebecca received an MS degree in 1969 from the Graduate School of Library Science at the University of Illinois. While a student, she was employed as an hourly computer consultant by the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois, work she had a talent for and found very enjoyable. After completing her MS, she was employed at the University of Illinois as an academic professional computer consultant, and she held that position for the following 24 years through the numerous reorganizations of the University’s computing services operations. She specialized in the use of magnetic tapes on the University’s main-frame computers, and she assisted with the management of the student computer consulting services until her retirement in 1993. Motivated by prize-winning hippopotamus art pieces sculpted by her father, Rebecca and her husband amassed a significant collection of hippo-related pieces of fine art, including several bronze sculptures, crystal hippo objet d’art, many miscellaneous hippo pieces, and an extensive collection of more than 80 hippo cookie jars. She was a long-time member of Hippolotafus, an international society of collectors of the hippopotamus in art. Becky was a loving, caring, smart, generous lady. She will be deeply missed. Memorials may be made to the John E. and Rebecca S. Wetzel Library Endowment Fund at the University of Illinois.

Posted online on September 28, 2022
Published in South Bend Tribune