Karl Laping

Karl Laping, age 92, of La Crosse, WI passed away peacefully on March 25, 2025.

Born in 1932 in Mastort, Banat, which was then part of Yugoslavia, he was the son of the town judge and farmer Jakob Laping and Anna Gerhardt. He was their second son, having an older brother Jack, a younger brother Hans, and a sister Marlene. He went to school there. At the end of WWII, their lives were disrupted by the Russian occupation, and they fled to Germany where they lived as farmers on a peninsula of the Rhine River. In 1955 they immigrated to America and settled in the Chicago area. Karl was drafted into the Navy where he spent 18 months in San Diego. After an honorable discharge in 1957, he married Ilse Beck in 1958. They had three boys together, Nick, Carl, and Hans. In 1967 he was accepted to medical school at the University of Graz, Austria. He graduated in 1975 and returned to Illinois in 1977. He set up a family practice in Quincy, Illinois, and worked there until his retirement in 2010. 

He prized his family above all, enjoyed restoring furniture, travelling throughout Europe and North America, playing cards and of course, golf. He is survived by his sister Marlene (Ivan), sons Nick (Stephanie) and Hans (Karrie), daughter-in-law Karen, grandchildren Erik, Lynn, Mia, and Max.