Ronda Biola Lavender

Ronda was a devout Christian woman who was raised in the Lutheran Church under the leadership of the late Edgar Guenther and his wife Minnie, the first Lutheran Missionaries to the White Mountain Apache people, and later by their son, the late Arthur A. Guenther and his wife, Gloria. She was very involved with the church from an early age and even accompanied Minnie Guenther to New York City in 1967 when Mrs. Guenther received the Mother of the Year Award. Ronda loved to travel, and she was able to do so through the Ladies Aid Association through the Lutheran Church. She sang, alongside her daughters, in the Ladies Aid Apache Choir for over 30 years, singing Christian hymns in the Apache language all across the United States.

Ronda had thirteen children total, with ten who survived into adulthood. She raised all her children and 8 grandchildren in her small home in Diamond Creek Arizona. She provided for her children by working as a nurses aid at the Whiteriver Indian Health Service Hospital and retired from there in the early 1990’s.

Ronda loved to plant and harvest corn, gather walnuts, pinions and acorns and bead, all of which she taught to her daughters. After retirement Ronda supplemented her income by selling her famous roast beef sandwiches in Whiteriver’s “tailgate cafe” food corridor. Ronda loved to collect rocks, often searching for just the right stone to bring home during her journeys with the Ladies Aid and other travel. She loved ice cream and being around her grandchildren. Ronda had twenty-six grandchildren, fifty-one great grandchildren, and nine great-great grandchildren.

Ronda is preceded in death by her children, Susie Lavender, Duncan Lavender, Asa-Ronnie Lavender, Brenda Ethelbah, Armondo Lavender, Michael Lavender and grandchildren, Ralan Ethelbah and Samuel Lavender.

A one-night wake will be held at 401 W Larzelere Street in the Rainbow City Community in Whiteriver on Friday, November 30, 2018. She will be brought to the community at 10am. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2018 at 1pm at the Whiteriver Lutheran Church of the Open Bible (18 W Oak Street, Whiteriver, Arizona). Interment will be following the funeral at the Whiteriver Cemetary.