Alexandria

Ulla-Riitta Maria Kärkkäinen LaGrone passed away just after dawn on November 23, 2021, while fighting a recurrence of breast cancer. She was 71. Ulla was born in 1950 on the outskirts of Helsinki to parents who fled the aftermath of war with the Soviet Union at the close of World War II.

Her parents - Nikolai Kärkkäinen and Maila Alice Nikkainen - left Viipuri in the Finnish region of Karelia with a wave of more than 250,000 Finns displaced by the Soviets. They settled in the Pasila neighborhood of Helsinki where Nikolai continued working as a city firefighter, and they had Ulla and then her sister, Eeva. Maila died when Ulla was two and Nikolai married Ulla’s step-mother, Anna.

Ulla grew up in Pasila with Eeva and was heavily involved with the Finnish Scouting movement, earning the equivalent of a U.S. Eagle Scout and the Wood Badge as an adult leader. She considered a career in journalism before pursuing nursing and graduated from the Helsinki Deaconess Institute Nursing School in 1973. Ulla’s class was the 95th to graduate from the school and is known as the K95 sisters. She did post-graduate work at the Helsinki Nursing School from 1976 to 1977 and began her path as a career Emergency Room nurse.

Ulla moved from Helsinki to Khamis Mushait, Saudi Arabia soon afterwards, accepting a position with an international staff at the local military hospital. There she met Ron LaGrone, a U.S. Army officer training the Royal Saudi Army. They moved to the U.S. and married in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapel, Fort Bragg, N.C., on October 27, 1979.

The next year her son, Samuel Robert LaGrone, was born at Fort Bragg followed by Daniel Ware LaGrone in early 1982 in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Over the rest of Ron’s career in the Army, Ulla, Sam and Dan moved across the country from Fort Bragg to Fort McClellan, Alabama, to Kansas, to Virginia, to Washington, and across the world to Thailand, South Korea, Okinawa, Japan, and Tartu, Estonia in both military and diplomatic assignments. It fell to her to move her family and household 15 times in 25 years. In 1989, she became a U.S. citizen.

Ulla was an avid volunteer. In 1992, she was named the U.S. Army on Okinawa Volunteer of the Year and received the Army Commander's Award for Public Service Medal, Fort Lewis, Washington, in 1996. In Tartu, she and two other practitioners taught medical English to local staff from 1999 to 2002, forging lifelong relationships. After returning to Alexandria in 2002, she volunteered at the Etowah Free Community Clinic, as a Girl Scout Camp Nurse at Camp Cottaquilla, driving cancer patients to appointments, as a “baby cuddler” for the Anniston Regional Medical Center, and in support of the Calhoun County Amateur Radio Association during the Cheaha Challenge and at many other events, including emergency response to several tornadoes. She was also a very active member of the Breast Cancer Support Group “Bosom Buddies” for more than 10 years.

Following Ron’s retirement from the Army, she worked as an ER nurse for 10 years at the Gadsden Regional Medical Center before retiring in 2012. Throughout her life, Ulla was a member of the Finnish Lutheran Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Ulla and Ron attended the Union United Methodist Church in Wellington, Alabama, where she would regularly teach Sunday School.

She is survived by her husband, Ron; sons, Sam (Cara Clark), and Dan; sister Eeva Repo; and grandson, Henry.

A memorial service will be held at  K.L. Brown Memory Chapel in Golden Springs at 3 pm on Sunday, December 12, 2021. The family will receive friends and relatives one hour before the service. Ulla will be laid to rest at the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo on Monday, December 13, 2021 at 12:30 pm.

In lieu of flowers please consider supporting Finn Spark, a charitable organization near to Ulla’s heart. (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=Htf6-hexnIiqhsPErjMQXf6kPR1fWPmKjOfUzF9-N6z-jyUQIK3cnw3zrvZslSKYhh2s0vfGmuJFLUox&fromUL=true&country.x=US&locale.x=en_US).

Online condolences may be made to the family at www.klbrownmemorychapel.com.

K.L. Brown Memory Chapel

620 Golden Springs Road

Anniston, AL 36207

(256) 231-2334