Personal Stories
Bev Saathoff
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Read a letter
written by
Bev's husband
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Bev Saathoff graduated from high school, worked her way through junior collage in Waterloo, Iowa, and then moved to Cedar Rapids to attend Kirkwood College and Coe College. She worked for a manufacturer of electric circuit breakers for three years and then for a local defense contractor for 25 years.
She met her husband John on a blind date in 1987. John remembers thinking, "Bev was tall, slim, beautiful and full of life on that first date. I remember thinking to myself, this will never work out."
But, indeed, it did work out for 15 years. They had a loving, meaningful, event-filled life which John summarized this way: "Love can be wonderful, and was it ever."
In 2002 Bev got bad news. She had been seeing a local doctor for back and chest pains for several months, but he told her that there were a lot of viruses going around and not to worry.
In August, John received a phone call that Bev had been taken to the hospital because she was having hard time breathing. After extensive testing, they were taken to a private room and told the news that would change their lives forever. Bev had mesothelioma.
She died less than three months later.
John Saathoff spoke for a lot of families who have lost loved ones to mesothelioma when he said, "Asbestos takes families, destroys lives and steals dreams away. The major corporations using asbestos in their products need to be held accountable."
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