Maxine Zihlman Denney 1925 - 2002

ZIHLMAN, DENNEY, MILLER, HUNT, WALKER, ALTEBRANDO, FINNEY

Posted By: A.M.W. (email)
Date: 1/30/2006 at 14:41:15

OBITUARY: Maxine Zihlman Denney

Maxine Zihlman Denney, 76, of Portland, Oregon, died on January 21, 2002, at her home in Portland. The funeral service was on January 26 at Tabor Heights United Methodist Church in Portland. Burial was in Finley's Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Portland. Memorials have been established to the Tabor Heights United Methodist Church for the benefit of children's education. The Stehn Milwaukie Funeral Home in Milwaukie, Oregon, was in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. Denney was born on March 26, 1025 in rural Wayland, the daughter of John Adam and Beatrice Maude Miller Zihlman. She attended school in Wayland and was a 1942 graduate of Wayland High School and attended college at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mt. Pleasant. At Iowa Wesleyan, where the PEO organization originated, she worked in the PEO Library. She trained as a teacher and taught in a one-room school in the Douglas and Maple Grove areas of Henry County, then taught junior high English and mathematics in Wayland and Waterloo. She married Hugh Robert (Bob) Denney on June 20, 1948. She was the county extension director in Iowa about 1950. After having children, she retired from teaching for a time to become a full-time mother/teacher. In about 1969 she returned to teaching to become the librarian for the Louisiana Elementary School in Louisiana, Missouri. Teaching children to read and write well was very important to her. She had exceptional organizational skills and the ability to see special needs of the children with which she worked. She was active in the Tabor Heights United Methodist Church, the Dove Circle of the Tabor Heights Methodist Church, and the Chapter BK of the PEO in Portland. In Louisiana, Missouri she attended Centenary United Methodist Church, was president of the Business and Professional Women's Club, belonged to the PEO chapter and was a member of the church circle.

Survivors include her husband; three daughters, Marjorie Ann Denney and her husband Douglas Hunt of Columbia, Missouri, and Martha Annette Denney and her husband, Lloyd Robert Walker of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Jeanne Denney and her husband, Nicholas Joseph Altebrando of Suffern/Montebello, New York; a son Jon Jefferson and his wife, Carol Leticia Finney Denney of Portland, Oregon; seven grandchildren, a sister, Helen Zihlman of Mt. Pleasant. She was preceded in death by her parents and two brothers, John Robert Zihlman and Dwight Miller Zihlman.