Brennan, Gertrude Baasch

BRENNAN, BAASCH, ANDERSON, KRAMER, REEVELL, GUYETTE, SULLIVAN, WIECK

Posted By: Ruth Maring - Volunteer Poster (email)
Date: 12/26/2008 at 19:35:52

Brennan, Gertrude Baasch View/Sign Guest Book

PRESTON — Gertrude Baasch Brennan passed away on December 8, 2008, in Richardson, Texas, at the home of her daughter, Katherine Anderson, where she had been living for the past year. Prior to moving to Texas, she resided in Marion, Iowa. She was 85 when she succumbed to a seventeen-year battle with cancer. Visitation will be held 2:00-5:00 p.m. Saturday, December 13, 2008, at Miller-Law-Jones Funeral Home in Preston, Iowa. An additional viewing will be held at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, December 14, 2008, prior to funeral services at 2:00 p.m. at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Preston. Burial will be in Miles City cemetery in Miles, Iowa. She was born Gertrude Irene Baasch in Miles, Iowa, on June 21, 1923. She graduated from Miles High School, and attended business school in Clinton, Iowa. She spent much of her working life as a bookkeeper, and in addition operated her own coffee shop in Cedar Rapids in the late 1950s, and was well known in Clinton as an Avon Lady in the 1970s. She was married to Melvin Kramer, originally of Mendota, Illinois, from 1943 to 1965. They had three children, Robert, Katherine and Donald. She retired in the early 1980s, and in 1986 she married for the second time to James “Jim” Brennan of Crawley, West Sussex, England. They met in 1983 at the Barbershop International Convention in Seattle, WA. They shared a love of barbershop music and travel. Gert and Jim never met a stranger, and enjoyed visiting and corresponding with all of their friends and family in North America and Europe. They lived their married life in England and in the United States, primarily in Colorado, Texas, and Iowa. She was preceded in death by her parents, Otto and Helma Baasch of Miles and Clinton, Iowa; her brother, Vernon Baasch of Miles; her second husband, Jim Brennan; and her first husband, Melvin Kramer. Gertrude is survived by her children: son, Robert Kramer of Greenwood, Indiana; daughter, Katherine Anderson of Richardson, Texas; son, Donald Kramer of Suwanee, Georgia; stepdaughter, Anne Reevell of England; and stepson, Stuart Brennan of England and their spouses and families including ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren; her sister-in-law, Esther Baasch of Miles, Iowa, and her children: Dianne Baasch, Deb Guyette, Denise Sullivan and Dwight Baasch and their families; and cousins, Alvin Jacobsen of Clinton, Evelyn Wieck of DeWitt, and Georgiana, Pauline and Edward Baasch, all of Clinton, and their families.Death date: Dec. 8, 2008