Tjossem, Wilmer Luverne 1922-2015

TJESSOM, MOFFITT, HAMMERLY

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 5/13/2015 at 01:13:50

Wilmer Tjossem
Indianola

Wilmer Luverne Tjossem, 92, passed away on May 1, 2015, as a result of injuries sustained in a fall at his retirement community in Indianola, IA.

Wilmer was born on July 15, 1922, in Ackworth, IA, to Ellen Lydia Moffitt and Merle Omer Tjossem. He grew up on the family farm in the Mapleside Community outside Paullina, IA, where his Norwegian Quaker ancestors helped establish Paullina Monthly Meeting, affiliated with the Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) of the Religious Society of Friends. Wilmer attended Paullina Community Schools into his early high school years when he transferred to Olney Friends Boarding School in Barnesville, OH, graduating in 1940. He entered William Penn College in Oskaloosa, IA, in the fall of 1940. After the outbreak of World War II, the wartime draft compelled Wilmer to interrupt his college education and file as a Conscientious Objector to war. He was assigned to perform Civilian Public Service (CPS) at various locations throughout the country until shortly after the end of the war, when he resumed his college education at Penn.

During a short Christmas leave in 1943, while serving in CPS, he married Joan Eloise Hammerly of Newton, IA, who he had met at Penn College. To help finance his college expenses, Wilmer was hired by Penn to work as an admissions recruiter and he traveled widely promoting the college. He received his BA from Penn in 1949. His work for the college and his long Midwestern Quaker background led to an offer from the American Friends Service Committee for a job as the Finance Secretary of the newly created North Central Regional Office of the AFSC in Des Moines. Wilmer spent the rest of his career raising funds for the worldwide work of the AFSC, during which time he helped open and manage a branch office in Denver, CO. His success in the regional office led to his transfer in 1966 to the National Office of the AFSC in Philadelpia, PA, where he continued his fundraising work until his retirement.

Wilmer and Joan returned to live in Newton, IA. In 2002, both moved to Wesley-the-Village, a retirement community in Indianola. ~ The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa 11 May 2015