HOOTS, Gertrude H. 1914-1999

HOOTS, MATTI, PIIPPO

Posted By: K. Kittleson (email)
Date: 1/14/2009 at 16:45:34

WATERLOO - Gertrude H. Hoots, 85, of 155 E. Ridgeway Ave., Waterloo, formerly of Mason City, died Saturday (Jan. 30, 1999) at the Covenant Medical Center.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at St. James Lutheran Church, 1148 Fourth St. S.E., with the Rev. David Anderson officiating. Interment will be in the Rockwell Cemetery, Rockwell. Visitation will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. today at the Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Mason City. Memorials may be given to the Gertrude H. Hoots Memorial Fund or St. James Lutheran Church in her memory.

Gertrude Heloise Hoots was born Jan. 27, 1914, in rural Otter Tail County, Minn. to Oscar and Edla T. (Matti) Piippo. Gertrude attended schools in Otter Tail County, near New York Mills, Minn. She helped raise her seven brothers and sisters when her mother passed away at age 16 and her father passed away when she was 18.

Gertrude came to Mason City in the fall of 1938. She married Herman John Hoots on Jan. 4, 1939, in Albert Lea, Minn. She worked at Weber's in the Drapery Department for 14 years. Gertrude has lived most of her life in Mason City. In 1995, she moved to Waterloo to be closer to her daughter.

Gertrude was a member of St. James Lutheran Church, Mason City, V.F.W. Auxiliary, and Rebekah Lodge. Gertrude enjoyed doing community service for the VFW and was a volunteer for St. James Lutheran Church, calling on church members in the care centers.

Survivors include four daughters, Rachael McMillan and husband, Donald, of Waxahachie, Texas; Donna Gobeli and her husband, Jerry, of Phoenix; Marlys Becker, of Waterloo; and Judy Dutcher and her husband, James, of Rochester, Minn.; nine grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; two brothers, Marvin Piippo, of Mason City and Einar Piippo, of New York Mills, Minn.; and one sister, Agnes Haavig, of New York Mills, Minn.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Herman J. Hoots; one infant son, Arthur James Hoots; three brothers and one sister.

[Mason City (Iowa) Globe Gazette, Feb. 2, 1999]