Willa Mae Steenman

Willa Mae Steenman

(6/24/1947 Fort Wayne, Indiana -3/19/2012 Miamisburg, Ohio)

married Alphonse Jacob Cousins Jr. (11/19/1965 Fort Wayne, Indiana)

*David Cousins 1966

*Linda Cousins 1968

   m. Gary Willis (of Vietnam) [Willis was adopted surname]

      Trevor Willis

      Preston Willis

*Robert Cousins 1969

   m. Lisa Louden (of Ohio)

*Peter Cousins 1970

   m. Melissa Yaste (of Michigan)

      Andrew Cousins

      Anna Cousins

      Aeryn Couisns

*Sandra Cousins 1972 (died 1972)

*Katherine Cousins 1973

   m. Michael Burns (of Indiana)

      Caleb Burns

      Mason Burns

1991

"Wendy", as she preferred to be called rather than Willa, was named Willa because her Dutch father named William thought she would be a boy and planned to name her William. But settled on Willa since she was a female. Somehow she got the nickname "Tootsie" while growing up. She was still called that by her relatives when they would have contact with her after all those years.

She got to skip 5th grade and spent a year in college to be an

"Wendy" with "Big Al"
in The 1990'S

accountant but dropped out when she was pregnant with me. She also learned to write shorthand while in high school.

She met my father at a laundry mat on Jefferson Street in Fort Wayne. She bought a Coke from the pop machine and my father said the "pop's warm" when she opened it. She thought "Thanks for telling me AFTER I pay for it." When she came back to put her clothes in the dryer he asked her out and the rest is history.

She was raised in 3 Churches at the same time growing up. She went to Catholic Church with her father and to both an Episcopalian Church and a Congregational Church with her mother who for some reason belonged to both. When her parents were dead she went full Catholic but converted to a Seventh Day Adventist after attending a seminar on the State of the Dead.

While growing up her father was a Republican who was big on Eisenhower as President but her mother was a Democrat. After her parents were dead she started as a Democrat. She worked as a volunteer on the Humphrey for President campaign in Fort Wayne in 1968. But after the Carter Presidency she switched to a Republican and remained so. From her office in Huntington, Indiana she watched the Bush/Quayle rally held there after the 1988 Republican convention. 

She worked as a sales rep in Huntington, Indiana from the 80's to the

2000's then moved to Ohio and worked in a organization for the homeless in Dayton as a secretary.

In the 1990's she was in America's Who's Who book.

In 1978 she moved south of Bluffton to a farm house and raised collies, chickens, cats, turkeys, ducks a pony and a goat. There would be lilies that grew in the ditch every year and she liked to sit outside and watch the lilies.

She died of colon cancer that spread to her liver and lungs. 

BTW, her sister Betty was a night club singer in Fort Wayne in the 50's and 60's and released an album which apparently flopped. But Betty did go on tour with Elvis as a back up singer for one tour.