[Not sure of school year]

Alexa von Ruecker Haak
Feb. 9, 1938 - May 3, 2021

Hales Corners, WI - Alexa von Ruecker Haak, age 83, of Hales Corners, Wisconsin, passed away May 3, 2021. Beloved by those many, many people whose hearts she touched, Alexa was preceded by her parents, Claus and Ilse (Carstens) von Ruecker. She is survived by her brothers, Claus von Ruecker, Bernard and Brita (Cziharz) von Ruecker and Axel von Ruecker and Roswitha Dickerhoff; her children Richard O. Haak (Carrie Smith) of Minneapolis, MN; Laurel L. Haak of Townsend, WI; Heather Haak (David) Levinson of Boston, MA; and grandchildren Timothy, Jamie, Emma, Ava, Ella, Serena, and Erika.

Alexa was born in Munich, Germany, and emigrated with her family to Montreal in 1948. The family moved to South Bend, IN in 1951, where she attended Washington Clay High School and was a prize-winning 4-H dress designer. She first met her future husband, Richard P. Haak, at her family home in Germany between high school and college, when he visited to meet her father, then the chief engineer for Porsche.

Alexa graduated cum laude from Bowling Green State University, with a Bachelor's degree in English and a teaching certificate. She was a member of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, Kappa Delta Pi education honors society, Sigma Tau Delta English honors society, and Beta Pi Theta French honors society. She participated in the Cygnets swim club, Swan Club synchronized swimming, the Humanist Society and the World Student Association. In the summers she worked at Saranac Lake. Somehow she also found time to correspond with Richard.

She and Richard married in Antioch IL, in 1961 and moved to Pittsburgh PA where she taught English and German at Duquesne High School until her first child was born. The family moved to Hales Corners, WI in 1969 where she and her husband raised their three children. Alexa was an avid gardener and enjoyed hiking, skiing, swimming at the lake, traveling across North America and Europe, and visiting family and friends.

Alexa was deeply involved in the local schools as a member of the PTA. She ran the Whitnall Middle School graduation ceremony for 8 years, delighting students and families with a stunning slide show each year, and came to every one of her kids' choral and band concerts and musicals. She was a Girl Scout troop leader, a member of the Hales Corners Woman's Club, a volunteer for the Visiting Nurse Society's Meals on Wheels program and the Hales Corners Historical Society, and an active member of the Hawthorne Garden Club. When her children reached high school, she joined the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as a data collector for the Consumer Price Index, a job that took her all over southeastern Wisconsin researching prices of consumer goods from groceries to housing and to Washington DC for annual trainings.

She enjoyed long-term friendships with high school and college friends, visiting regularly on cross-country jaunts and attending class reunions. She found joy in bargain-hunting and made so many people happy with her prize-winning garden at her home, where deer, squirrels, turkeys, chipmunks, and a variety of songbirds were regular guests. Her children are grateful recipients of plant cuttings from her garden, including rhubarb, irises, vinca, and hostas.

A celebration of Alexa's life will be held over the July 4, 2021 weekend at the Haak family lake house in Townsend, Wisconsin.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations to the Boerner Botanical Gardens, Hales Corners, WI. https://boernerbotanicalgardens.org/donate/.
 

05/15/2021 JFC