Remembering Carla Hess
Carla Hess, retired professor of speech pathology, died Sept. 23, 2019 at Valley Senior Living in Grand Forks. She was 78.
Carla Marie was born Aug. 29, 1941, to Elsie Belle née Evans and Orville Henry Wulff of Billings, MT. Carla, and Elsie’s sons from a previous marriage, Charles Eugene “Gene” & Elmer Lewis “Duke” Seel, were soon joined by siblings Mona Belle & Donald Henry Wulff. The family of seven relocated to a small ranch outside of Big Timber, MT, though the older boys spent much of the year with their father near Malta, MT.
Carla’s teaching career began very early when Mona started first grade at the one-room schoolhouse they attended. The teacher was occupied with an older student who spoke only Norwegian and needed to pass state exams that were given only in English. Carla was expected to see that her sister and the Norwegian first grade sibling got all their worksheets done.
While she was in high school, Carla started a school of baton-twirling and soon had several younger girls as students.
She graduated from Montana College (now Montana State University) and went to work teaching High School English in Bozeman, MT. After giving birth to her first child, LaVonne Renee, she and her husband, Lindsay LaRoy Hess, attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks where she received a Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology. She taught within that department for a year before moving to Urbana, Ohio, where she received a Doctorate in Speech and Hearing Science from Ohio University. She practiced in the field of speech therapy for a year and a half until the birth of her second daughter, Tonya Rachelle.
In 1975, the Hesses returned to Grand Forks and Carla taught at UND from that time until her “first retirement” 25 years later. She continued to teach at UND with her second husband, Richard George Landry, in his distance classes on educational research for another 10 years.
During her retirement, Carla’s greatest joy was spending time with her family: daughters Annalisa Batson, née LaVonne Hess, Wendy Landry Washburn, Heidi Marie Landry, Linda Landry Pekearo, Tonya Hess Sachi; sons-in-law Schurkey Swanke, Brian Washburn, Dan Pekearo, Paul Sachi; grandchildren Lissa, Connor, & Zach Washburn, Spencer & Steward Sachi; nieces and nephews Charles Sherman “Shorty” Seel, Terry Seel Mosier, Shaun & Darci Wulff.
Carla felt so strongly about the value of education that she deeded her body to the UND School of Medicine so that she could “teach” even after she departed this earthly life on September 23rd, 2019 to join her parents and siblings in the next.
A Celebration of Life gathering will be held at 2pm on Saturday, November 2nd at the Grand Forks Hampton Inn
