Cheryl Ruth Selby Kielczewski, Alpha Sigma Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Cheryl Ruth Selby Kielczewski, who was known as Ruth, was born on October 8, 1958, in Macon, Missouri. She attended high school in Atlanta, Missouri, and was valedictorian of its high school’s class of 1977.

She enrolled at Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University). There she became a member of Alpha Sigma Tau and during her senior year, she was named Outstanding Greek Woman. She was also active in the Cardinal Key honor society and was Assistant Editor of the student newspaper. She graduated summa cum laude.

In the 1980s, she served as an Alpha Sigma Tau District President. On October 22, 1983, she wed Richard Z. Kielczewski. The couple had two sons.

Kielczewski worked as an advertising and marketing executive. The clients she served include Dell, AT&T, and Taco Bell. In her linkedin profile, she described herself thusly:

I’m a seasoned pro with an expansive knowledge base – high-tech advertising, direct marketing and bank/financial advertising – although I’ve also served clients in many business-to-business and consumer fields. I’m not afraid to tackle in-depth subject matter and have written for numerous media including collateral, print advertising, direct mail, newsletters, promotions, radio, and interactive mediums. I can present ideas, deliver sharp strategic insight and direct creative projects from start to finish.

She was also described by one of her former employees,

It’s simple and clear: Ruth is the best boss I’ve ever had. There are many possible reasons for this. Maybe it’s because she’s a fellow writer – a superb wordsmith, if you want to know the truth – and knows how writers think. Maybe it’s because she leads by example and always had my back. Maybe it’s because she has such clear vision and cuts to the strategic, targeted chase. Or maybe it’s all of the above and more. Ruth is an inspiration to me. She gets it. That intangible it. Not everybody does. I can say without reservation that her leadership, mentorship and teaching ability made me a better writer. She always challenged me to do more, and the work was always better for it. The best work of my career can be traced directly back to her. She knew when to push. She knew when to set me loose. And she did all of it in a way that made it feel like it was for my benefit. And it was, but only if it benefited the work as well. And that’s part of her genius. Nobody ever led me – or my team – with a surer hand. I have complete trust in Ruth as a creative director, and believe me, that is nothing anyone should ever take for granted. So to say that I recommend her is dangerously underplaying the reality of the situation: I can’t recommend her enough. You simply can’t do better talent wise, character wise or just plain wise. She made me better. She’ll make you and your company better, too.

Kielczewski died on March 13, 2018, after a six-year battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). She was 59 years old.

 

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Florence M. Rohr, Alpha Delta Pi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Florence Myers Rohr was born on February 27, 1878, in Lynchburg, Virginia. She studied at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and Brenau College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. While a student at Brenau, she founded Phi Beta Sigma in 1905; it was an honorary literary society whose criteria were high scholarship, leadership and character.

Rohr worked as an instructor at Brenau from 1906-1913. She became a member of the Lambda chapter of Alpha Delta Pi at Brenau College when it was chartered on April 18, 1910.

She also installed the Phi chapter at Hanover College in 1913, initiating the seven charter members. According to an account, Rohr:

was to have been here on Friday, May thirtieth, the date of our annual Pan-Hellenic dance given by the men’s fraternities. We had planned to have a college reception at the home of Eloise Mills, daughter of the president. A telegram came from Miss Rohr about the middle of the week telling us she must go to Chicago May thirty-first to attend a fraternity convention. Our plans were completely upset. Miss Rohr arrived in Hanover Sunday morning. We had our installation Monday evening in our sorority hall after which we returned to the dormitory for a spread. Miss Rohr remained with us until Wednesday morning when she took the boat for Louisville.

She coordinated the Brenau European Party, and took a group including seven Alpha Delta Pi members to Europe. One visitor, Pearl Napier O’Daniel, an Adelphean, whom the others called “Mother Dannie” described the trip, “I had the good fortune to be a member of Miss Florence Rohr’s delightful European party last summer, and our boat, the Canopic, weighed anchor one bright June day off the coast of the Madeira Islands.” She noted, “I would occasionally forget and speak of the Adelphean Society instead of the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority.” Her Adelphean badge was “quite an object of curiosity to some of the girls, and they would beg to wear it. Once we held an impromptu meeting in my room in Dublin, and as we sat on the bed school girl fashion, I felt like a college girl again.”

When Rohr studied at Columbia University in 1917, she taught part time at the Horace Mann School. She and her sister took an apartment and invited five other women to join in a cooperative living arrangement. Rohr later said:

Each girl brought and prepared the dinner and breakfast for the following morning one day a week and I began to realize how much one could get by pooling resources with others. After a few months, an elderly couple living in another apartment asked me to take over their apartment, letting them retain a few rooms. Not long after another couple, breaking up, asked me to take over their lease and their furniture for anything I would pay and pay when pleased.

By saving what she could from this arrangement, Rohr was able to purchase a house at 100 Morningside Drive. The Morningside Residence Club of New York City was born.

In 1920, as a lecturer for the U.S. Department of Justice, she spoke throughout the eastern states. Publicity about the tour appeared in June 1920 newspapers;

As a part of the battle against the high cost of existence the housewives of the country are being organized into State chapters all over the country by the women’s activities branch of the Department of Justice, in its campaign against high prices. Twenty states have been organized; it was announced. Encouraged by the progress of work, three additional women organizers have started from Washington to take up the organization work. They are Misses Mary Stewart, Helen Grimes and Florence Rohr, all good speakers, whose mission it will be to tell women’s clubs all over the country and weld them into effective units in the campaign to lower prices. The speakers will preach judicious buying, educate housewives in marketing principles and teach the wisdom of buying only essential things.

Ithaca Journal, July 9, 1920

Juanita Brooks’ 1980 account of talking about going to Columbia University for a masters in 1928 mentioned the club:

Early September found me on the eastbound ‘Flyer’ scheduled to go to its final terminal, New York City. Here I would enroll in Columbia University. I arrived in NYC in the later afternoon with on one to meet me. By sunset I was established on the 7th floor of The Morningside Residence Club, a home for women only.

A 1930 newspaper article state that Rohr felt she was “blazing a trail toward a new type of community living inside a city.” It was her aim, the newspaper reported:

to provide the members of her club all the elements that go to make up a wholesome and normal life. To this end, there is an afternoon tea every Sunday from 4 to 6 in the long reception room, to which any member can invite a friend. There is the Wednesday night bridge club. One can join a class for French or Italian conversation or take bridge lessons at small expense. The member who wants to keep in touch with the latest plays or attend the opera once a week has an opportunity to get tickets at club rates. Several season seats for the opera are bought every year and club members get these at the original cost.

In February 1931, she won first prize in the Class B division of the City Gardens’ Club’s annual exhibition for her photograph of the roof garden she had designed.

The Morningside Residence Club moved to  600 W. 113th Street in 1937. Rohr was also a member of the  NYC Altrusa Club.

In January of 1941, she spoke in Florida as a country-wide lecturer for the British War Relief Society.

She died  in Lynchburg, Virginia, on December 2, 1959, at 81 years of age.

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Gladys Allene Hanna Hazeltine, Sigma Sigma Sigma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Gladys Allene Hanna Hazeltine was raised in Walworth, Wisconsin. After high school, she enrolled at Whitewater Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater). Her major was elementary education, and she became a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma.

After earning her degree, she married Donald Roger Hazeltine in 1949. She began her career teaching first graders in Beloit, Wisconsin.

In 1953, they moved to Joliet, Illinois, and her primary focus became raising her family, although she occasionally served as a substitute teacher. Six years later, the Hazeltines moved to Evansville, Indiana, where her husband and a friend became McDonald’s franchisees. Hazeltine helped support the family business taking on some administrative and community focused duties.

She was instrumental in establishing a Tri Sigma chapter at the University of Southern Indiana, which at that time was called Indiana State University – Evansville. Hazeltine also served as an advisor to the chapter.

Evansville Press, October 27, 1968

She was also an active alumna and when she and her husband moved to Florida permanently in 1993, she was a charter member of the Sarasota-Manatee Alumnae Chapter which was chartered on May 9, 1997. She supported the Tri Sigma Foundation.

She was involved in community, church and charitable organizations wherever she lived.

2016

In 1997, the Hazeltines set a presidential scholarship endowment at the University of Southern Indiana. A few years later, they gave another $1 million unrestricted gift to the university. In 2000, the Hazeltines were honored with honorary doctor of laws degrees.

Gladys Allene Hanna Hazeltine died on February 23, 2023 at the age of 95.

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Helen “Betty” McGarr Murtagh, Theta Phi Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Helen Elizabeth “Betty” McGarr Murtagh, was born on October 23, 1925 in Lakewood, New Jersey. After the death of their parents, she and her three siblings were taken care of by her mother’s sister, Mildred Brown.

She had artistic talent and while growing up in Jersey during World War II, she painted signs and decorated the sides of blimps and war planes at Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

She enrolled at Syracuse University and became a member of its Theta Phi Alpha chapter. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1947, she was employed by several advertising agencies and she freelanced fashion illustrations.

She married Gil Murtagh, a New York University graduate, in 1950 at Saint Mary of the Lake church in Lakewood. They honeymooned in Bermuda. He was an architect and the couple lived in Norwalk, Connecticut. The Murtaugh family grew to include five children.

Betty Murtagh used a bedroom for her studio. She illustrated several children’s books, including one with her neighbor, Virginia Hartmann, entitled I Can Do Anything. It was published in 1963 and was even read on the children’s television show Romper Room. She also created more than 75 Christmas card designs.

After the family moved to Hinsdale, Illinois, in 1974, she began exploring and experimenting with printmaking and created more than 100 large and colorful serigraphs.

She moved to Utica, New York, after the death of her husband in 2001. Her first art show was curated by Dr. Becky Shaw, a British artist. The show took place at the Munson Museum of Art in Utica. An exhibit at Utica College and at Syracuse University followed. A collection of her work remains at the Resource Center for Independent Living in Syracuse.

She died on May 20, 2008, at the age of 83. Some of her work can be seen on her facebook page.

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Frances Steen Suddeth Josephson, Kappa Kappa Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Frances Steen Suddeth Josephson grew up in Baltimore. She became a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma while attending Goucher College where she was a biology major. Her goal was to become a doctor.

Dorothy Stinson, the president of Goucher, was the cousin of Henry Stinson, the United States Secretary of War. That connection was the impetus for some extremely bright Goucher women being recruited as clandestine cryptographers, “codebreakers.” The work she did was her secret until 1992, when the U.S. government finally declassified the project. Her first husband never knew about her codebreaking career because he died before she was able to discuss it.

After her graduation from Goucher in June 1942, she was one of the first WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). She was commissioned as an Ensign in August 1942. In an article in The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma, she stated that the work she and her fellow codebreakers did helped bring the war to a quicker close.

She worked the midnight to 8 a.m. shift as she took part in race to decode the German’s Enigma machine. The work they undertook directly contributed to the Allies’ European victory. Decoding the Japanese code was much harder, and it touched her personally. Her brother, Commander Egil Steen, was a U.S. Navy captain. He commanded a ship which she learned was to be attacked, according to a Japanese code which was intercepted. There was nothing the Navy could do to avoid the kamikaze attack. While almost all of the crew were killed, Commander Steen survived the attack.

On November 20, 1944, she married Naval Air Commander James H. Suddeth in the St. Andrew’s Chapel at the United States Naval Academy chapel in Annapolis. Her husband was a Phi Kappa Tau, a graduate of Georgia Tech. Captain William N. Thomas, the academy chaplain, officiated. The bride wore an ivory satin gown and a veil which her mother had worn years before at her own wedding. The bride carried a bouquet of orchids and gardenias. A reception took place at the Officers’ club in Annapolis.

James Suddeth died on September 1, 1960, when he was struck by lightning on a Summerville, South Carolina, golf course. She married Captain H. Carl Josephson in 1962.

Frances Josephson was multitalented. She was an active volunteer and an accomplished artist. She also modelled at stores and taught charm and poise to high schoolers.

In 2004, Josephson was honored by the Navy Cryptologic Veterans Association. Her son, James “Jed” Suddeth, Jr., had served in the U.S. Naval submarine force and offered this tribute: “As an American citizen, with all the freedoms we have, I thank you; as a fellow naval officer, I salute you; and as a son, I love you.”

She died on June 9, 2007, at the age of 86.

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Mignon Good Eberhart, Alpha Gamma Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Mignonette “Mignon” Good Eberhart was born on July 6, 1899, in Lincoln, Nebraska. She studied for three years at Nebraska Wesleyan University where she became a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. Her sister, Lulu Good Vogelsang, was also a member of the chapter. Vogelsang would go on to serve Nebraska Wesleyan on its governing board and Alpha Gamma Delta as national president. Both sisters were members of P.E.O.; Mignon was a member of Chapter CA\Nebraska.

M.G. Eberhart, as she was known professionally, described her journey as an author. She began writing when she was a teenager:

I preferred writing to studying Caesar’s Commentaries and algebra. There was one halcyon period during which I traded work on English themes for the solution of geometry problems, with an obliging classmate, but, perhaps for the best, this was very brief. There was a long novel to which I could add chapters at will, and numerous plays, all of which were advisedly destroyed. In my early twenties I gathered up courage and postage stamps and sent a book-length typescript to an editor. It was accepted. The story was a murder mystery and thus started me on a hard but rewarding writing path. The writer hopes that a mystery novel is entertaining to read but it is not easy to write.

She began writing in earnest after her 1923 marriage to Alanson Eberhart, an engineer.

The first short story The Dark Corner she submitted was rejected twice but it was finally published in Flynn’s, a detective magazine.

The Patient in Room 18 was her first published novel. It debuted in 1929. Her second novel was The Patient Slept and it was awarded a $5,000 Scotland Yard prize for the best detective story of 1929. The Crime Club also selected it as its book of the month selection.

In a newspaper interview which took place early in her career, she said that she read to her husband each day’s work and if he was bored with any of it, she would rewrite it. Her rationale was “I know the public will have the same reaction. A logical husband is almost a blessing if you’re going to write mysteries.”

In March 1930, she spoke at a dinner sponsored by Theta Sigma Phi, a national journalism sorority, at the Lincoln hotel. She related her plan for utilizing her leisure time in a productive way “in the writing of mysteries and murders.”

Nebraska Wesleyan University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1935.

The couple divorced in 1943. She then married John Hazen Perry in 1946 but the marriage lasted about two years. They divorced in 1948 and she remarried her former husband. Alanson Eberhart died in 1974.

The Greenwich, Connecticut home in which she lived. (Alpha Gamma Delta Quarterly)

During her lifetime, Eberhart wrote more than 55 novels and was one of America’s best-known romantic suspense novelists. She was called the American Agatha Christie. Some of her recurring characters were Sarah Keate, Lance O’Leary, Susan Dare and James Wickwire. Her novels were adapted for cinema and television, and one was even performed on Broadway. She adapted the novel Fair Warning into a play Eight O’clock Tuesday, which ran on Broadway in 1941.

Eberhart was awarded a Grand Masters Edgar from the Mystery Writers of American and was a past president of the organization. Her books were translated in 20 languages. Harry Truman was “one of her most ardent fans.” In 1994 she received the Agatha Award: Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Eberhart wrote her last book Three Days for Emeralds when she was almost 90. She died on October 8, 1996, at the age of 97 in a Greenwich, Connecticut nursing home.

In 2007, a collection of her short stories was published. The Cochrane-Woods Library at Nebraska Wesleyan University has first editions of her 59 novels and the music for the song Mignonette which was composed for Eberhart while she lived in Chicago.

A plaque identifying her as a recipient of an honorary doctorate from NWU and a list of her achievements was presented by the Nebraska Wesleyan University Alumni Association and is in the Alpha Gamma Delta chapter house.

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Jean Messecar Caldwell, Phi Mu, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Phi Mu was founded on January 4, 1852 at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. Originally known as the Philomathean Society, it and Alpha Delta Pi, also founded at Wesleyan College, are known as the “Macon Magnolias.” Phi Mu  was founded by Mary DuPont (Lines), Mary Myrick (Daniel) and Martha Hardaway (Redding). The founding was publicly announced on March 4, 1852, the day that is celebrated as Founders’ Day. On August 1, 1904, the group received a charter from the state of Georgia and was established as Phi Mu Fraternity. The second chapter was founded at Hollins College in 1904. Phi Mu joined the National Panhellenic Conference in 1911.

Jean Messecar Caldwell was born on July 20, 1927 in Owosso, Michigan. She was born before her fraternal twin brother. A graduate of Alma College, she began law school at the University of Detroit. When her parents moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, she moved too, and began her studies at the University of Tulsa Law School.

She became a Phi Mu at the University of Tulsa. In 1952, she became a member of the Alpha Omicron chapter of Phi Delta Delta law fraternity for women. She was just one of four women in her law school class and the only woman at the Bar exam.

Tulsa Tribune, May 27, 1952

On November 12, 1953, she became Mrs. Robert E. Caldwell. She first worked at a small law firm and then became one of the first women to be hired as an attorney in the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office. When she became pregnant with the first of the couple’s six children, she was relieved of her position in the D.A.’s office.

Caldwell was an active volunteer in her children’s activities as well as in her church community. She served on many Catholic and ecumenical committees in Tulsa. Caldwell began the first Diocese pre-school education program. Along with the Holy Family Cathedral Choir, she sang at the Vatican in Rome.

In 1989, she earned a master’s degree in theological studies from Loyola University Pastoral Studies program in 1989.

She died on July 13, 2019 at the age of 91.

 

 

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Martha Broadus Anderson Winn, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

 

Martha Broadus Anderson Winn, a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., was born in 1875 and she was raised in Washington, D.C. In 1898, she married railroad porter Henry S. Anderson.

A soprano, she studied voice, first in Washington with John T. Layton, and then at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. She then enrolled at the Chicago College of Music and became its first black graduate when she earned a bachelor’s in music in 1908.

She taught voice in Chicago and had her hand in many local musical activities. She hosted musicales in her home. She was a soloist at Quinn Chapel AME Church, Chicago’s first Black congregation, and she was a member of the Choral Study Club. She co-founded the Coleridge Taylor School of Music in Chicago and was choir director of the Bethesda Baptist Church.

In the 1920s, she was writing for The Broad Ax newspaper. Her column was called “The Music Cabinet.” She served as an officer of the National Association of Negro Musicians.

She married Baptist minister, the Rev. John Henry Winn, and moved to Texas. There, she taught and performed. Then ty moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where Rev. Winn became pastor of the Fifth Street Baptist Church. He died in 1955. His wife served as the head of the church’s music department and she remained an active volunteer.

Martha Broadus Anderson Winn died in 1967 at the age of 91.

The Broad Ax, October 3, 1925

 

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Iris Barrel Apfel, Phi Sigma Sigma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Iris Barrel Apfel died on March 1, 2024, at the age of 102. As an octogenarian she became known as a style icon, although she was fashionable and had her own sense of style throughout her life.

Apfel grew up in Astoria, Queens. Her father ran a glass and mirror business and her mother owned a fashion boutique. She studied at New York University and then attended the University of Wisconsin where she majored in art. There she became a member of Phi Sigma Sigma and served as the chapter’s vice president.

Capital Times, December 20, 1942

She’s second from left in the second row

She worked in fashion in New York City before marrying Carl Apfel on February 22, 1948. From 1950 until 1992, the Apfels owned a textile company, Old World Weavers, and she branched out as an interior decorator. The company’s focus was on 17th, 18th and 19th century fabric reproductions. They collaborated on renovations of the White House under nine presidents from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Apfel had a wonderful eye for fashion and bought items while on her travels all over the world. In September of 2005, Rara Avis (Rare Bird), an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, featured her clothing and accessories.

She was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Apfel was the subject of a documentary by Albert Maysles; in 2014, Iris premiered at the New York Film Festival.  Three years later she appeared in the documentary, If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.

She wrote a biography, Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon, in 2018 and a year later, she signed a modelling contract at the age of 97 .

The Apfels were married for 67 years when Carl Apfel died at the age of 100 on August 1, 2015. I suspect the number of married couples who both make it to age 100 is exceptionally miniscule. What an amazing woman and what an amazing life she led.

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Carol J. Nemitz, Zeta Tau Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2024

Carol J. Nemitz, Dean Nemitz,as she was known to legions of Iowa Wesleyan University students, was born in Pulaski, Iowa, on February 25, 1934. After graduating from high school in 1951, she enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan. There, she became a member of the Alpha Alpha Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha chapter and she was involved in many student activities including athletics, music, drama and literary pursuits.

She left Iowa Wesleyan after her sophomore year because her father died. She became an elementary school teacher in the Iowa school systems of Wapello, Keystone, and Corydon.

The Zeta Tau Alphas held the third annual Iowa State Day on April 30, 1955, and she was in attendance as an alumna. Nemitz graduated from Iowa Wesleyan in 1956.

After earning a master’s degree at the University of Northern Iowa, she worked there for several years as a residence hall director. In 1962, she was serving as an officer the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Alumnae Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. When she was hired by Iowa Wesleyan in 1963, the alumnae chapter gave her a send off.

Courier, July 11, 1963

Between the fall of 1963 until her retirement nearly 50 years later in August 2013, she was an integral part of the campus. Among the jobs and titles she had were counselor and Dean of Students. She served as toastmistress at the 1966 Zeta Tau Alpha Iowa State Day.

When she became Vice President of Student Affairs in 1970, she was Iowa Wesleyan’s first female vice president. In 2002, Nemitz even served as Iowa Wesleyan’s Interim President. Her ability to remember names and dates was exceptional. Given her history with the campus and her excellent memory, she was a font of information.

Iowa Wesleyan, her alma mater, appreciated and loved her. Among the honors she received were an Alumni Service Award, a Distinguished Served Award, and an honorary doctorate. A new residence hall, Nemitz Suites, named for her in 2006, as was an award for outstanding IWU staff members.

Carol Nemitz received a Distinguished Service Award from Iowa Wesleyan in 2014.

Nemitz was active in professional organizations and was the first woman to be awarded the Iowa Student Personnel Association Distinguished Service Award. Among her civic affiliations were Rotary, AAUW and Chapter DD of TTT. In addition, she was an active member of Mount Pleasant’s First United Methodist Church.

The P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded at Iowa Wesleyan on January 21, 1869. She was a 50+ year member of Chapter Original A  and served as the chapter’s president. Nemitz also served as Historian of International Chapter. She led tours of the Memory Room in Old Main and was a member of the Sesquicentennial Committee for the festivities in 2019.

She died on February 3, 2024, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, at the age of 89.

I consider myself lucky for having met her several times. Her dry sense of humor always brought me a smile. And she will be missed by oh so many Iowa Wesleyan grads, Mount Pleasant citizens and members of the P.E.O. Sisterhood.

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