Vera LaVerle Thiele

DAVIS, WHITTENBAUGH, THIELE, TURNEY, KNOX, KRIVANEK, YUKOVICH

Posted By: d.beier (email)
Date: 3/9/2007 at 21:41:19

Vera LaVerle Thiele
Ft. SMITH, Ark. - Funeral services for Vera LaVerle Thiele will be 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, at the Jamison-Schmitz Funeral Home, Oelwein, with the Rev. Tom Zeleny officiating. Burial will be in Long Grove Cemetery, Maynard. Friends may call from noon until service time Sunday at the funeral home.
Mrs. Thiele, 95, died suddenly Wednesday morning, Feb. 4, 1998, at her home in Arkansas.
She was born Aug. 24, 1902, in Wadena, the daughter of William and Maude (Davis) Whittenbaugh. She graduated from Upper Iowa University, Fayette, and taught country school near Wadena and later in the Maynard school. She married John William Thiele on Nov. 24, 1925, in Oelwein. Mrs. Thiele was the first teacher in Iowa to be allowed to continue teaching after she married. She lived in Oelwein for 15 years, from 1940 to 1964 in Maynard, from 1964 to 1994 in Harpers Ferry, and the last four years in Ft. Smith, Ark. She was a member of Emmanuel United Methodist Church, Maynard, the United Methodist Women, and a former member of the Order of the Eastern Star. She was very active in the Methodist church while in Maynard.
Survivors include one son, Jack (Marcia) Thiele Jr., of Ft. Smith; one daughter; Jean (Richard) Turney of Chautauqua, N.Y.; seven grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; one brother, Faye Whittenbaugh of Wadena; and three sisters, Marge Knox of Wadena, Mary Krivanek of Redding, Calif., and Nellie Yukovich of Fairbanks, Alaska.
She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, John, Sept. 12, 1987.
The family suggests memorials be made in her name to the Maynard Community Hall or the Harpers Ferry Community Hall.