WALLACE, Mary Louise (nee Keene)

KEENE, WALLACE

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 7/3/2009 at 10:38:24

Mary Louise Wallace (nee) Keene

NORA SPRINGS, IOWA -- Mary Louise Wallace, 83, of Nora Springs, died Wednesday (July 26, 1995) at North Iowa Mercy Health Center, Mason City.

Memorial services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, 305 Fifth St. S.E., Mason City, with the Rev. James E. Hayes officiating.

The body was donated to the University of Iowa. Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Mason City, is in charge of the arrangements. Memorials may be given to the Mary Louise Wallace Memorial Fund.

Mary Louise Wallace was born Sept. 22, 1911, in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of William Keene and Helena Keene (nee) Bowen. She attended school and graduated from Seton High School in 1930 in Baltimore.

She married Eugene C. Wallace on Oct. 11, 1930, at St. Agnes Catholic Church, Baltimore. She lived in Baltimore most of her live and worked for the Social Security Administration, from where she retired in 1974, and she then moved to Nora Springs.

She was very active in many volunteer activities, R.S.V.P., and volunteered at both Mercy Hospital and North Iowa Medical Center. In 1991, she received the Floyd County Volunteer of the Year Award. She was best known for her many years as "Mrs. Santa" at the various schools, nursing homes, hospitals and the MacNider Museum. She was also an active volunteer at the Nora Springs Care Center. She was a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church.

Survivors include two daughters, Helene Wallace, Nora Springs, and Jeanne L. Wallace Bernhardt and husband, David Bernhardt, Plymouth; three grandchildren, Douglas Bernhardt and wife, Susan, Kansas City, Mo., Daniel and Julie Bernhardt, both of Plymouth; one sister, Marguerite Clas, Sykesville, Md.; one half brother, William Cecil Keene of Maryland; and a very special friend, Kay Schock, Nora Springs.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Helena Bowen and William Keene; husband, Eugene Wallace; one infant son; and an infant sister, Bebe Bowen.

[M/C Globe Gazette 7/29/1995]