Monika Peters
I feel an instant kinship with Monika Peters. The first day she enters the doors of GICC to be our new band director, I know we will be friends.
It's because she's tall. To be exact, she's the same height I am. We look at each other eye to eye - a rare novelty for both of us - and in that space of time I know she knows what I know. About being taller than every boy in middle school. About having to wear boy clothes because the girl stuff never reaches our long limbs. About finally embracing who we are.
"After all that awkwardness, I got to college," she reflects, "and I thought, Wow! Being tall is great!"
Her enviable model thinness makes even a pair of jeans seem elegant. If that isn't enough, she's multi-talented. This last month she performs in GILT's "A Little House Christmas" as the difficult Mrs. Olson. She enjoys acting and performing in various venues, but her real love is music.
Music, Monika Peters says, saved her life. And the whole of her life is nothing short of remarkable.
Monika barely remembers her father Charles who died when she was three. Her parents meet in Germany where Charles is stationed in the army. Lottie, her German mother, marries the tall handsome serviceman, and soon they have three children. Monika is the oldest, Johnny is a year younger, and Jeff is the baby.
When Charles is killed in a car accident, Monika's mother has no choice but to be brave. A young German woman who speaks no English, Lottie must nevertheless take her three young children to the United States. It's the only way she will qualify for her late husband's army benefits in order to raise her children. Charles's parents reside in Wood River, Nebraska, and a three-year-old Monika is bewildered by the scope of the move to the American plains and to her stern grandparents. Now, with adult awareness, she can't imagine how her mother Lottie managed to raise a family in a foreign country.
Two years after the tumultuous move to Nebraska, Monika remembers walking along the pavement clutching her small stuffed animal.
"All of a sudden there was this man at our house," she recalls with clarity. The man was John Doyle who would become stepfather to Monika, Johnny and Jeff. "I didn't like him," Monika says. "He was not my father, and I knew that."
She remembers asking her small brothers, "Do you like him? Do you like him better than Dad?"
With her new husband, Lottie gives birth to three more children: Ed, David, and Patty.
One July afternoon, Monika remembers the entire family - even her grandparents - loading themselves into the car for a drive. They will visit friends and then head to her grandparents' house to celebrate her little brother David's second birthday. It's the last time they will all be together. At an intersection near her grandparents' home, an oil truck smashes into them.
Ten-year-old Monika, sitting between her grandparents in the front seat, remembers nothing until she realizes she's under the dashboard.
"Monika," her injured grandmother calls to her, "can you get out?" Monika, however, has suffered a broken collar bone. She remembers listening to her suffering mother in the back seat take three long sighs. These many years later, the memory of her mother's dying breaths brings tears to her eyes.
"I always felt I should have saved her," Monika says.
When they are finally extracted from the vehicle and taken to the Grand Island hospital, Monika pesters the nurses in desperation. "Where's my mother?" she asks again and again. No one tells her anything. She and her little brother Ed, the least injured of the family members, are treated and rolled on gurneys into a hospital room to share.
"The tv was on in our room," Monika recalls, "and that's how we found out what happened."
John and Lottie Doyle, along with nine-year-old Johnny, two-year-old David, and 11-month-old Patty, have all died in the crash. More than anything, Monika wants her mother. She wants to go home, except that home no longer exists. While her grandparents are hospitalized for injuries, her brother Jeff - the only other surviving family member - is transported to intensive care with a critical head injury. During those days of recovery, Monika has no idea where home is any more. She comforts her toddler brother Ed as they heal and wait.
It develops that Monika's grandparents have already made arrangements. One day shortly after the accident, a couple from Rhode Island turns up in Wood River. Neither Monika nor her little brother Ed has ever met them, but they are her stepfather's siblings. They have come to take Ed back to Rhode Island with them. Because Ed is not their own son's child, Monika's grandparents refuse to raise him.
For the rest of her life, Monika will remember the day her small brother is taken from her.
"I don't want to!" three-year-old Ed sobs and grabs her. The two cling to each other, but there is not a single thing a ten-year-old Monika can do.
In the meantime, her 7-year-old brother Jeff - partly deaf due to a bout of meningitis he'd suffered in Germany - is sent to the Nebraska School of the Deaf in Omaha. Only Monika will reside with her grandparents, and her life is a far cry from the one she shared with her beautiful mother and a houseful of siblings.
Monika's grandfather is an alcoholic. Her grandmother has suffered a nervous breakdown.
"I had to quit my job because of you," she lashes out at Monika. This seems illogical to the little girl even then because her grandmother is a teacher. They keep the same hours, but her grandmother is bitter and resentful nevertheless.
While other kids play outside, Monika's grandmother makes her practice her saxophone and take voice lessons.
"It turned out to be the best thing, really," Monika says now. Those long hours of practice begin to foster her love of music. "Music truly saved me," she says. "It was my escape, and it made me feel good and accomplished."
Eventually, as a middle school student, her talent catches the ear of the high school band director, and she's invited to play in the high school jazz band. As she develops her talent in band and vocal music, she wins All-State awards. But even as a freshman, Monika knows she wants to grow up to be a band director. Ron Crocker, director of bands at Kearney State College, is aware of Monika's great musical gift and recruits her while she is still a high school freshman.
"I owe him so much," Monika says now.
Until she is able to leave her grandparents to go to college, Monika credits her church choir for helping her through those difficult adolescent years. "They were my family," she says simply.
At last, after an enormously successful college career, Monika works hard to embrace life. She and her brother Jeff do not remain close, but her little brother Ed is always special to her. Her toddler brother does not fare well in Rhode Island with his new family and is sent back to Nebraska to be placed with a family in Hastings. Even though Monika and he have little contact, they feel a strong bond with each other through the years.
In the ensuing years, Monika will earn her masters, marry Rick Peters from St. Paul, Nebraska, and give birth to two sons - Brock and Brett.
"When I was pregnant with Brock," Monika remembers, "my due date was July 23rd. But I knew he'd be born on July 19th, the same day as the accident." And so he was.
Her marriage does not survive, but Monika is grateful for the two sons it produces. As well she is grateful for her work. After working for the St. Paul school system, she spends eight years as the choir director at Grand Island's Barr Middle School and makes many good friends. Her students adore her and remain close to her forever. Eventually, however, she moves to Papillion to become vocal music director at Papillion Middle School. She directs an award winning show choir and is awarded the Outstanding Secondary Educator award in 2016 from the Papillion LaVista school district.
In the middle of all this success, however, Monika confronts her next life battle. In 2011 on a hot July day - very near the anniversary of the accident - she learns she has stage 3 breast cancer. Bravely, she submits to a mastectomy, but a call from the doctor almost knocks her to the ground.
"He told me I had Lynch Syndrome," she recalls. Lynch Syndrome is a gene that raises the risk of several other types of cancer, including colon and endometrial. In order to prevent those cancers, Monika's doctor orders her to have an immediate hysterectomy, colonoscopy and endoscopy which she elects to have done in a single mammoth surgery. Finally, she undergoes chemo and radiation.
"But because of my breast cancer and the discovery of Lynch Syndrome," she says, "my son Brett is alive today."
Brett, 23-years-old, tests positive for Lynch Syndrome. A colonoscopy will reveal a large tumor, and Brett's entire colon is removed. But today, both he and Monika are healthy and cancer free.
"I was all alone living by myself when this happened," Monika says, "but it seems all my life there has always been one person around to lift me up."
When her fellow colleagues and students - past and present - hear about Monika's cancer, they rally to help. Her Papillion eighth graders and the high school vocal director arrange a fundraiser. Monika's son Brett sings a special solo for his mom, and every student in the ninth through twelfth grades performs as well. Monika at one time or another has taught them all. "Why We Sing" is the theme of the fundraiser, and it raises ten thousand dollars. At Papillion South, Monika's drama director friend raises money at the school's musical performances.
In the meantime, her Barr Middle School friends are also supporting her. Monika remembers the day she receives a hundred dollar check in the mail from a former Barr student. "Because of you," the note reads, "I sing to my baby."
In spite of all the tragedy, Monika Peters considers herself a lucky girl. She adores her children and her three grandchildren and shares a relationship with a good man. John Morgan, a widower and long time lawyer who lives and works in Fullerton, has been Monika's boon companion for many years. To be back in Grand Island, near her family, she says, feels like being back home.
It's hard to believe Monika has endured such tremendous loss all her life. She's fun, energetic and deeply passionate about her work. Every day, she approaches all that she does with fervent gusto and savors life.
But she still misses her siblings and especially her mother. On the anniversary of the accident, 50 years ago this year, she thinks about her lost family. Of the ten people in the wrecked car that July day so long ago, Monika is now the only survivor. The dreaded family gene steals both her remaining brothers. Jeff, whom she eventually connects with again, dies of colon cancer a little more than a year ago. Her sweet baby brother Ed succumbs to the same disease at the age of 39. Monika is with him.
"What have I done with my life?" Ed cries to Monika. "It's been a short one, and it didn't count for anything."
Monika hugs and comforts her baby brother much the way she did those many years ago when he was dragged from her arms.
"Your life counted," she assures him before he dies. "It always counted."
Monika's story stays with a person. It's hard to shake. How can one slight girl be so brave? How does she overcome every new tragedy?
But her faith is strong, Monika is adamant. Even now, during the bleakest and lowest times, she turns to her faith. Her last brother's funeral brings back all the emotion and loss of the accident. Always, she longs for her mother.
"I was getting into the car after the funeral," she recalls, "and a butterfly flew into the car with me!"
She believes it was a sign from her much loved mother - a mother from Heaven who is incredibly proud of the magnificent woman her little daughter has become.
 |
Monika Peters |
It's because she's tall. To be exact, she's the same height I am. We look at each other eye to eye - a rare novelty for both of us - and in that space of time I know she knows what I know. About being taller than every boy in middle school. About having to wear boy clothes because the girl stuff never reaches our long limbs. About finally embracing who we are.
"After all that awkwardness, I got to college," she reflects, "and I thought, Wow! Being tall is great!"
Her enviable model thinness makes even a pair of jeans seem elegant. If that isn't enough, she's multi-talented. This last month she performs in GILT's "A Little House Christmas" as the difficult Mrs. Olson. She enjoys acting and performing in various venues, but her real love is music.
Music, Monika Peters says, saved her life. And the whole of her life is nothing short of remarkable.
Monika barely remembers her father Charles who died when she was three. Her parents meet in Germany where Charles is stationed in the army. Lottie, her German mother, marries the tall handsome serviceman, and soon they have three children. Monika is the oldest, Johnny is a year younger, and Jeff is the baby.
 |
Monika's mother Lottie |
 |
| Monika's father Charles |
Two years after the tumultuous move to Nebraska, Monika remembers walking along the pavement clutching her small stuffed animal.
"All of a sudden there was this man at our house," she recalls with clarity. The man was John Doyle who would become stepfather to Monika, Johnny and Jeff. "I didn't like him," Monika says. "He was not my father, and I knew that."
 |
From left, Johnny, Jeff and Monika |
With her new husband, Lottie gives birth to three more children: Ed, David, and Patty.
One July afternoon, Monika remembers the entire family - even her grandparents - loading themselves into the car for a drive. They will visit friends and then head to her grandparents' house to celebrate her little brother David's second birthday. It's the last time they will all be together. At an intersection near her grandparents' home, an oil truck smashes into them.
Ten-year-old Monika, sitting between her grandparents in the front seat, remembers nothing until she realizes she's under the dashboard.
"Monika," her injured grandmother calls to her, "can you get out?" Monika, however, has suffered a broken collar bone. She remembers listening to her suffering mother in the back seat take three long sighs. These many years later, the memory of her mother's dying breaths brings tears to her eyes.
"I always felt I should have saved her," Monika says.
When they are finally extracted from the vehicle and taken to the Grand Island hospital, Monika pesters the nurses in desperation. "Where's my mother?" she asks again and again. No one tells her anything. She and her little brother Ed, the least injured of the family members, are treated and rolled on gurneys into a hospital room to share.
"The tv was on in our room," Monika recalls, "and that's how we found out what happened."
 |
Patty and David - both killed in the accident. |
It develops that Monika's grandparents have already made arrangements. One day shortly after the accident, a couple from Rhode Island turns up in Wood River. Neither Monika nor her little brother Ed has ever met them, but they are her stepfather's siblings. They have come to take Ed back to Rhode Island with them. Because Ed is not their own son's child, Monika's grandparents refuse to raise him.
For the rest of her life, Monika will remember the day her small brother is taken from her.
"I don't want to!" three-year-old Ed sobs and grabs her. The two cling to each other, but there is not a single thing a ten-year-old Monika can do.
In the meantime, her 7-year-old brother Jeff - partly deaf due to a bout of meningitis he'd suffered in Germany - is sent to the Nebraska School of the Deaf in Omaha. Only Monika will reside with her grandparents, and her life is a far cry from the one she shared with her beautiful mother and a houseful of siblings.
Monika's grandfather is an alcoholic. Her grandmother has suffered a nervous breakdown.
"I had to quit my job because of you," she lashes out at Monika. This seems illogical to the little girl even then because her grandmother is a teacher. They keep the same hours, but her grandmother is bitter and resentful nevertheless.
While other kids play outside, Monika's grandmother makes her practice her saxophone and take voice lessons.
"It turned out to be the best thing, really," Monika says now. Those long hours of practice begin to foster her love of music. "Music truly saved me," she says. "It was my escape, and it made me feel good and accomplished."
Eventually, as a middle school student, her talent catches the ear of the high school band director, and she's invited to play in the high school jazz band. As she develops her talent in band and vocal music, she wins All-State awards. But even as a freshman, Monika knows she wants to grow up to be a band director. Ron Crocker, director of bands at Kearney State College, is aware of Monika's great musical gift and recruits her while she is still a high school freshman.
"I owe him so much," Monika says now.
Until she is able to leave her grandparents to go to college, Monika credits her church choir for helping her through those difficult adolescent years. "They were my family," she says simply.
 |
| Ed on his 5th birthday with his new Hastings family |
At last, after an enormously successful college career, Monika works hard to embrace life. She and her brother Jeff do not remain close, but her little brother Ed is always special to her. Her toddler brother does not fare well in Rhode Island with his new family and is sent back to Nebraska to be placed with a family in Hastings. Even though Monika and he have little contact, they feel a strong bond with each other through the years.
In the ensuing years, Monika will earn her masters, marry Rick Peters from St. Paul, Nebraska, and give birth to two sons - Brock and Brett.
"When I was pregnant with Brock," Monika remembers, "my due date was July 23rd. But I knew he'd be born on July 19th, the same day as the accident." And so he was.
 |
Monika during treatment for cancer |
In the middle of all this success, however, Monika confronts her next life battle. In 2011 on a hot July day - very near the anniversary of the accident - she learns she has stage 3 breast cancer. Bravely, she submits to a mastectomy, but a call from the doctor almost knocks her to the ground.
"He told me I had Lynch Syndrome," she recalls. Lynch Syndrome is a gene that raises the risk of several other types of cancer, including colon and endometrial. In order to prevent those cancers, Monika's doctor orders her to have an immediate hysterectomy, colonoscopy and endoscopy which she elects to have done in a single mammoth surgery. Finally, she undergoes chemo and radiation.
"But because of my breast cancer and the discovery of Lynch Syndrome," she says, "my son Brett is alive today."
 |
| Monika receives the 2016 Outstanding Secondary Education award with daughter-in-law Ashley, older son Brock, John, and younger son Brett. |
"I was all alone living by myself when this happened," Monika says, "but it seems all my life there has always been one person around to lift me up."
When her fellow colleagues and students - past and present - hear about Monika's cancer, they rally to help. Her Papillion eighth graders and the high school vocal director arrange a fundraiser. Monika's son Brett sings a special solo for his mom, and every student in the ninth through twelfth grades performs as well. Monika at one time or another has taught them all. "Why We Sing" is the theme of the fundraiser, and it raises ten thousand dollars. At Papillion South, Monika's drama director friend raises money at the school's musical performances.
 |
John and Monika |
In spite of all the tragedy, Monika Peters considers herself a lucky girl. She adores her children and her three grandchildren and shares a relationship with a good man. John Morgan, a widower and long time lawyer who lives and works in Fullerton, has been Monika's boon companion for many years. To be back in Grand Island, near her family, she says, feels like being back home.
 |
Monika with two of her granddaughters |
It's hard to believe Monika has endured such tremendous loss all her life. She's fun, energetic and deeply passionate about her work. Every day, she approaches all that she does with fervent gusto and savors life.
But she still misses her siblings and especially her mother. On the anniversary of the accident, 50 years ago this year, she thinks about her lost family. Of the ten people in the wrecked car that July day so long ago, Monika is now the only survivor. The dreaded family gene steals both her remaining brothers. Jeff, whom she eventually connects with again, dies of colon cancer a little more than a year ago. Her sweet baby brother Ed succumbs to the same disease at the age of 39. Monika is with him.
"What have I done with my life?" Ed cries to Monika. "It's been a short one, and it didn't count for anything."
Monika hugs and comforts her baby brother much the way she did those many years ago when he was dragged from her arms.
"Your life counted," she assures him before he dies. "It always counted."
Monika's story stays with a person. It's hard to shake. How can one slight girl be so brave? How does she overcome every new tragedy?
But her faith is strong, Monika is adamant. Even now, during the bleakest and lowest times, she turns to her faith. Her last brother's funeral brings back all the emotion and loss of the accident. Always, she longs for her mother.
"I was getting into the car after the funeral," she recalls, "and a butterfly flew into the car with me!"
She believes it was a sign from her much loved mother - a mother from Heaven who is incredibly proud of the magnificent woman her little daughter has become.
Bawled my eyes out. What a truly amazing soul. Thanks for "drawing" her story for us.
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