VALPARAISO | Once a year the girls met at Carlene Bartelt's rural Wisconsin retreat for a week of shopping, eating, talking and playing bridge until midnight.

On Monday, members of the So-So Girls, as the group was known, recalled the 40 years of hospitality and good cooking extended by Bartelt, a former Valparaiso University nursing professor who died last week.

"You couldn't ask for a more loving friend," said Esther Kruger, a member of the group named for Bartelt's mother, Sophia Heidbrink, who served as former VU President O. P. Kretzmann's longtime secretary.

Bartelt's friends recalled a caring, sensitive woman who was impeccably groomed and devoted to Christianity. She loved to read, and she also loved ice cream cones.

"Carlene was the most intelligent woman I think I've ever met," said Dody Ruosch, a member of both the So-So Girls and the Flock, a 42-year-old monthly lunch group that Bartelt started.

Bartelt was a fixture at VU basketball home games.

Lois Reiner, who shared Bartelt's love of VU basketball, called Bartelt a very witty person with a dry sense of humor.

"She was quite an accomplished woman," Reiner said.

"She had many friends, and she kept her friends for life," said Lorene Thune, a colleague of Bartelt's from VU days and a Flock member. "What she did she just did from the heart."

Thune called Bartelt "a mid-20th century girl" who kept some modern conveniences such as microwave ovens and dishwashers at arm's length. And she was an avid Coca-Cola drinker who wanted nothing to do with Diet Coke.

"She liked to do things the old way," Thune said.

Bartelt also cared faithfully for her husband, Louis Bartelt, a retired VU law professor who died in January, Thune said.

"She was a gift giver, and she had a knack for selecting things that were perfect for you," Thune said.