GOURLEY, Irene M. (Hermanson) 1920-2003

MCCORMACK, HERMANSON, KELLY, GOURLEY, HOERNER, NORTHOUSE

Posted By: Mary Durr (email)
Date: 4/21/2003 at 14:37:28

Irene M. Gourley

Telegraph Herald - Friday, April 4, 2003

Mrs. Herbert (Irene M.) Gourley, of 1635 Drexel Ave., died at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, 2003, with her family by her side at Mercy Medical Center- Dubuque.

Services will be at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Hoffmann-Schneider Funeral Home. Burial will be in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Key West, Iowa. Friends may call from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday at the funeral home, where there will be a wake service at 4 p.m.

She was born on Feb. 21, 1920, in Huron, S.D., daughter of Sever and Cecelia (McCormack) Hermanson.

After the death of her mother when she was 2½ years-old, she went to Waterville, Iowa, along with a brother, Earle, to live with her mother's sister, Jane (McCormack) Kelly and Mike Kelly. Earle was killed in World War II. There she attended school and was on the basketball team and played at the state tournaments in Des Moines all four years of high school and was selected to the state team.

She attended classes at then Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls, taking private music training and attaining a teacher's certificate.

She moved to Dubuque and married Herbert Gourley in 1949 at St. Raphael's Cathedral.

Irene belongs to the Power of Prayer, Lourdes Prayer League, and the Art Society. She was an avid oil painter and her oil paintings have been shown at "The Barn" and area art shows.

Music, sewing and reading are more recent interests, but she always put love of family first and was a devoted mother. She was loved so much by her family.

Surviving are her husband, Herbert Gourley; three children, Beverly Gourley, of Erie, Colo., and Genevieve Gourley and Lou Ann (Jim) Hoerner, both of Dubuque; a grandson, Jason Northouse; and a sister-in-law, Mary Hermanson, of Waukon, Iowa.

An Irene Gourley Memorial Fund has been established.