Ernest Ochsner

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  • Ochsner Obituary
    Ochsner Obituary
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Ernest Victor Ochsner, the youngest son of immigrants, Victor and Melita (Eisenbraun) Ochsner, was born on January 28, 1944 in Isabel, South Dakota and died from complications of cancer on October 28, 2022 at the age of 78.
His family left South Dakota in 1946 and moved to Sutton, and ten years later to Lincoln. Ernest grew up loving the outdoors, spending most of his free time along the creek and river bottoms of South-Central Nebraska. This love for the natural world manifested itself in his profession as a self-taught landscape painter and photographer, which he pursued all his life. His works can be found in private and corporate collections all over the world.
In 1972 he married, Lynda (MacDonald), in Omaha, and his daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1973. After living and working in New York City, Ernest and his family moved to Aurora in 1974 to establish the first Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í Faith. He served the Faith in many capacities and was a beloved member of the community his entire adult life.
Ernest was on the Prairie Plains Resource Institute’s Board of Directors for several years as well as one of the founding directors of the Food Pantry and continued to work with them for another 20 years. In addition to his volunteer work in the community, he began working at the Alice M. Farr Library as a custodian and grounds keeper in 1991. He retired from that position in 2019 and the little garden he started next to the building is still maintained today.
He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Warner and Bruno.
Those to remember him are his wife, Lynda, his daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Joerg Stamm of Germany, his grandchildren, Nadja, Colin and Henry, and his sister, Lucia Schneider of Lincoln, as well as nephews, nieces, cousins and friends.
A graveside service was held October 31, 2022 followed by a gathering of friends and family at the Alice M. Farr Library.  Higby-McQuiston Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. Condolences may be e-mailed to the family through the mortuary website at www.higbymortuary.com.