Christenson, Jennie Frances Conaway (1904-1999)

CHRISTENSON, CONAWAY, BEAL, SIMPSON, VANCE, FISHER, WEATHERBY, GILL

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 12/12/2020 at 10:52:00

Daily Freeman Journal, Webster City, Iowa, Wednesday, October 27, 1999

Jennie Christenson, 95, Jewell, died Sunday, Oct. 24, 1999 at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames. Graveside services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Masonic Cemetery near 48th and University in Des Moines with Rev. Gerald Sawyer to officiate. A memorial fund has been established for the South Hamilton Elementary School Library. Becker Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Jennie Frances Conaway was born July 12, 1904 in Deep River, IA., to Clement and Elizabeth Beal Conaway. She received her Normal Training and started teaching at Avon Lake District in Polk County in a one room school. From there she went on to earn a master's degree from Ohio State University. During her career she also held teaching positions in Des Moines, Dubuque, Council Bluffs and Harlan. In 1950, she moved to Rochester, MN. She taught first grade and in 1960, she was the first woman to hold the position of principal in the Rochester School District. She was active in Business and Professional Women's Society of Minnesota and was a lifelong member of the Eastern Star Organization. She retired from teaching in 1970. She married Lyle Simpson of Des Moines in 1928. Following her retirement, she married Barrie Christenson in Omaha, NE. They lived in Harlan until 1974. After her husband's death, she moved to Jewell to be close to her family. She renewed a friendship with high school classmate Moe Robinson and moved to Altamonte Springs, FL. They traveled and visited family and friends until the time of his death.

Survivors are her nieces and nephews, John and Donna Conaway of Jewell, Carol and Lonnie Vance, Benbrook, TX., Shirley and Earle Fisher, Prattville, AL., Arthur and Lois Weatherby, Lansing, MI., great-nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husbands, Lyle Simpson and Barrie Christenson and friend Moe Robinson, her parents, brother and sister-in-law, John Conaway and Marjorie Gill Conaway, her sister, Helen Conaway and nephew, Robert Fisher.