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Veehoff, Mary (1931-2016)

VEEHOFF, MARCH, WOLSKI, DUNN, JANAS, REIS

Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 12/15/2016 at 13:18:15

Mary Veehoff
May 17, 1931 - October 24, 2016

Mary Veehoff, age 85, of Storm Lake, Iowa, died on Monday, October 24, 2016, at her home in Storm Lake.

The twelfth of thirteen children born to Fred and Katherine March, Mary was born in the small village of Melfort in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. When she was a young girl, her family moved to a farm near the town of Enderby in British Columbia, Canada. Mary always thought of British Columbia as home; she loved the mountains, the fruit orchards, and the salmon streams. Surrounded by family there, she felt secure.

As a young adult, Mary lived in Vancouver with a group of other young women who would become her lifelong friends. She studied fashion design and developed her talent for sewing. A few years later, she and her friends moved to San Francisco where she met a U.S. Navy sailor from Iowa. Mary and Bernard Veehoff married in June of 1956 at Old St. Mary’s Church in San Francisco. They lived in Sausalito, California, before moving to Storm Lake in March of 1957.

Mary spent her early years in Storm Lake establishing her home and family and helping her husband with his locksmith supply business. When the couple’s three children were in grade school, Mary decided to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse. She completed nursing studies in 1969 and then began a 37-year career as a nurse at Buena Vista County Hospital, now known as the Buena Vista Regional Medical Center. After retiring from nursing, Mary volunteered for many years with the local hospice program and served as an election judge.

Mary was an accomplished seamstress with a strong sense of fashion, but she also loved painting (often using rocks or the sides of buildings as her canvas), reading, playing cards (Her canasta group met regularly for nearly fifty years), traveling, baking breads and rolls, spending time with her children and grandchildren, and just having fun. A happy, welcoming person, she will be missed by many.

Mary is survived by her three children, Carolyn Wolski (Mark), of St. Paul, Minnesota, Bonny Dunn (Dennis), of Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, and Mike Veehoff, of St. Paul, Minnesota; her five grandchildren: Rachael Dunn Janas, and her husband, Matt, Sam Dunn, and his wife, Kathryn, Louis Dunn, and Gabriel and Ann Wolski; her sister, Pearl March, of Vancouver, British Columbia; her sister-in-law, Helen Reis, of Fonda; and her brother-in-law, Joe Veehoff, of Springfield, Missouri; along with many beloved nieces and nephews across Canada and the United States. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bernard H. Veehoff.

A Funeral Mass will be offered on Saturday, October 29, 2016, at 10:00 a.m. at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Storm Lake. Burial will follow in the St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery. Visitation will take place Friday, October 28, 2016, from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. with a rosary at 5:00 p.m. at the Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Storm Lake. The Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Storm Lake is in charge of the arrangements.

Copyright © 2016, Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Homes


 

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