Gertrude Killmer Rayper

Funeral services for Gertrude Killmer Rayper, 93, will be held on Friday, September 1, 2023, at Rose-Neath Funeral Home, 2201 Airline Drive, Bossier City, Louisiana at 2:00 p.m. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home and Park Mausoleum, 601 Highway 80 Haughton, Louisiana. A visitation will be held at Rose-Neath Funeral Home on September 1, 2023, from 1:00 p.m. until time of service. Officiating the service will be Pastor Andrew Brewster.

Gertrude Killmer Rayper was born on October 14, 1929, to Ernest “Earney” Lee and Jenny Edna Killmer in Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, and passed away on Friday, August 25, 2023, in Frisco Texas.

Gertrude grew up in various places throughout north and south Louisiana and graduated from Jennings High School. She attended college and studied both in Alaska and Louisiana. She had many different jobs in her working career. She was a telephone operator, an excellent seamstress who did alterations, and a patient representative in the emergency room at Willis Knighton Bossier Hospital where she retired in 2006. She also became a paralegal and Notary later in life and enjoyed working the polls during elections. She was an avid reader and seemed to always have a book in her hand. She would read two to three books a week and ingest knowledge and take her mind on adventures that her body couldn’t. She enjoyed gardening, swimming, and doing charity work. She was a long-time member of Bellaire Baptist Church in Bossier City where she loved serving the lord and her community with her church family.  One of the most important and rewarding jobs she had in her life was that of being a homemaker for her family.  She spent 42 years being a military spouse to her soul mate and husband James. She was a devoted and doting mother to her two daughters Debra and Jennifer, and she was also a very loving and wonderful grandmother to her grandchildren and great-grandsons, who brought her so much joy and happiness. She loved her family and extended family dearly and they will all miss her fiercely.

Honoring Gertrude as pallbearers will be Bill Habacker, Bruce Dahlberg, Charles Allen, Kaden Craig, and Sean Craig.

Gertrude was preceded in death by her parents; husband James Grey Rayper; and daughter, Jennifer Lee Reider. Left to cherish her memory is her daughter; Debra Lynn Habacker and husband, William; grandson, James Brandon Grey; granddaughter, Brittany Lynn Rayper Craig and husband, Bryan; and great-grandsons, Sean Kristian Craig and Kaden Jeremy Craig.