Gervich, Susan Dawe (1946-2019)

GERVICH, DAWE, PIEBENGA

Posted By: Paul Nagy, volunteer (email)
Date: 3/12/2019 at 16:08:42

Years ago, Sue Gervich read an article claiming we should all challenge ourselves to do eight new things a year. Most people would have read it, noted it as an interesting life philosophy, and moved on. But for Sue, a gauntlet had been dropped!

She spent the rest of her life making sure she notched eight new experiences every year, a mission that would lead to her parasailing, eating bugs, riding in a rickshaw and an eighteen-wheeler, and even spending a night in prison. She was rabid about completing her annual list, even in the face of controversy— like the time she told her family "one of her eight" was buying an iPad 4... because her last iPad had been an iPad 1. When she passed away on March 2 in Mesa, Arizona, she was in the middle of another one of her eight: spending a month in a mobile home.

Rosemary Susan Dawe was born on May 13, 1946, in Chicago, Illinois, to Vernon and Elaine Dawe. Growing up in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb, she had three siblings: Betsy, Charles, and Janice. After graduating from Highland Park High School in 1964, she headed to the University of Iowa.

Sue never actually got her degree from Iowa, but she left with something more valuable: a husband. She met Marshalltown native Dave Gervich her freshman year, and they married three years later, on August 20, 1967. Sue, eventually, transferred to the University of Missouri where Dave was in journalism school. She completed her B.A. in Elementary Education in 1969. After finishing at Mizzou, Sue and Dave lived in Columbus, Georgia; Moberly, Missouri; and Independence, Missouri.

In 1972, Dave took a job at the Iowa Falls Times Citizen. Sue, a born-and-bred city girl, did not want to go. She protested, “Iowa Falls was just too small...” She'd be bored... She wouldn't make any friends. Eventually, Dave convinced her to give it a year. If she didn't like it, they'd leave. That summer, they moved into a house on the corner of Glen Drive and Jason Avenue in Iowa Falls. They lived there for the next 47 years.

Sue taught kindergarten at West School (Pine View), substituted for years, and tutored young patients at Ellsworth Hospital. A member of the Isabella Literary Society and the Ellsworth Hospital Auxiliary, she served on the Board of Directors of the Pat Clark Art Collection as well. Moreover, she worked as a volunteer in the Hansen Hospital gift shop.

If you got up early enough, you could see Sue pedaling around town with her bike group. If you stayed up late enough, you'd see her reading a novel for her book club or playing Words With Friends on her iPad.

While Sue loved Iowa Falls, she, also, loved visiting her grandkids in New York and California and the Dawes' fishing cabins in Canada. She and Dave were regular cruisers, sailing to the Caribbean, up the Eastern Seaboard, and down rivers in France and China. In recent years, they, also, traveled to Greece, Cuba, and Spain.

More than anything, Sue loved her family. Christmas shopping was not a seasonal activity, but a year-long affair. On every cruise, on every trip, she looked for stocking stuffers she could give in December. This meant most of her gifts had to be flat and packable... which is why everyone she knows has 83 kitchen towels and 147 packs of cocktail napkins.

Sue leaves behind her husband, Dave; her siblings: Betsy Piebenga, of Fairway, Kansas, Charles Dawe, of Deerfield, Illinois, and Janice Dawe, of Fairbanks, Alaska; her children and grandchildren: Chad Gervich (Kelly) with Max and Miles, of Los Angeles, California; and Curt Gervich (Amy) with Jacques and Eloise, of Plattsburgh, New York.

She, also, leaves behind dozens of handmade quilts and her recipe for chocolate coconut brownies, the greatest dessert invention of all time.

The Family of Sue Gervich, 2019.