CLIFFORD, Lenore C. (SORENSEN)
SORENSEN, CLIFFORD, OTZEN, CARSTENS, RIDGEWAY, FROMM, ELLIS, STRAND, SNYDER, HANKNER, ANDREWS, BAKER, SKENE, BERGMAN, MILLER
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/4/2016 at 02:10:28
Obituary ~ Lenore C. (Sorensen) Clifford
May 26, 1914 ~ February 05, 2008
The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
February 07, 2008MASON CITY -- Lenore C. Clifford, 93, of Mason City, died Tuesday (Feb. 5, 2008) at the Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit.
Funeral services will be held 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, in the Wayside Chapel at First United Methodist Church, 119 S. Georgia Ave., Mason City, with the Rev. Jim Stiles officiating. Inurnment will be in Memorial Park Cemetery, Mason City.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday at the Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel, 126 Third St. N.E. in Mason City.
Memorials may be given to North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City.
Lenore Sorensen Clifford was born May 26, 1914, to Martinus Brahms and Emma Otzen Sorensen on their farm near Plymouth, their third child. When she was 6, her father died, leaving four little children. Her mother later married Chris Carstens, who continued to farm and support the family and gave her a baby sister.
She was brought up in the Free Methodist and Methodist churches in Plymouth and attended Plymouth school, graduating in 1932. She attended Mason City Junior College, living and working for Ethel Ridgeway and Joy Ridgeway Johnson and working at the Leome McGee Tea Room. After earning her teaching certificate, she taught in the country school Lime Creek No. 6 and lived with Charlie and Gertie Fromm in 1934-35.
She attended Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls during the summers while she was teaching at Central Heights and Madison elementary schools, earning bachelor's and master's degrees, and she took additional course work at Columbia University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and others.
She became the principal of Madison School in 1952, a position she held until retirement in 1979. She also taught teacher education classes at North Iowa Area Community College.
She married Paul Clifford at the Little Brown Church in Nashua in 1951. He passed away in 1982. She was a member of First United Methodist Church in Mason City. Her home at 9 S. Jackson Ave. was often filled with fellow teachers and friends.
Later she moved to the Manor, Cornerstone Senior Living and then to Good Shepherd Care Center.
Lenore loved to travel and made two trips to Europe during which she visited relatives in Denmark. She traveled to many of the United States, spending several winters in Arizona and North Carolina.
She also loved to write. For more than 20 years, she attended writing classes and workshops taught by John Skipper and others and filled a trunk with her stories. She was currently working on stories about teaching in a country school.
Mrs. Clifford is survived by her sister and brother-in-law, Royce (Carstens) and John Ellis, of Shelby, N.C., and a brother-in-law, Leroy Strand of Geyser, Mont.; nephews and nieces, Ray Eric (Sandra) Sorensen, Karen (Peter) Snyder, Sonja (John) Craig, Jon Sorensen, Kirsten Sorensen, Barney Joe (Melissa) Hankner, Christopher (Cindy) Ellis, Janell (Tom) Andrews, Star (Mary) Ellis, Candice Baker and by 17 great-nieces and great-nephews; many cousins, including Thorvald Sorensen, of Plymouth, Hans Sorensen of Wisconsin, Edith Skene, of Ventura, Helen Bergman, of Britt, and Frances Miller, of Ventura; and by many, many former students and their families, and many friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents; step-father; her husband, Paul; brother, Raymond Sorensen, and his wife, Willa; sister, Evelyn, and her husband, Ted Hankner; and sister, Norma Strand.
Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel, 641-423-2372. www.colonialchapels.com
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2016
Cerro Gordo Obituaries maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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