Irene Else Hoover (1907-2001)

ELSE, HOOVER, DILLEY, PRINE

Posted By: volunteer
Date: 4/24/2015 at 13:17:50

RALEIGH, N.C. -Aa memorial service for Irene Else Hoover, 94, long-time resident of Mahaska County, was held Sept. 22, at College Avenue Friends Church in Oskaloosa. Mrs. Hoover died Sunday, Sept. 2 in Raleigh, N.C. Memorials: P.E.O. Program for Continuing Education or to one's favorite charity. Her ashes are to be interred in the family plot in Bloomfield Cemetery in a private ceremony.
Irene Else Hoover was born April 10, 1907, to Fred Else and Lula Dilley Else of Madison Township. She married Carl W. Hoover on Aug. 12, 1925, in the Little Brown Church in Nashua. She was an active homemaker, mother and community worker. She was a 4-H Girls' Club leader from 1933-1938; chairwoman of Mahaska County Women's Farm Bureau, 1946-1948; district committee-woman, Iowa women's Farm Bureau, 1948-1956; member of the Mahaska County Board of Social Welfare, 1962-1982; chairperson of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of College Avenue Friends Church; representative of the Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends to the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation; member of the Legislative Study Committee for Mental Health appointed by Gov. Leo Heogh (1956) and Gov. Norman Erbe (1962); and vice chair of the Mahaska County Republican Committee for four years. She also was a member and officer of PEO Chapter X and of Altrusa, a women's service club.
Her community activities led her to travel on many occasions, including attendance at the Associate Country Women of the World held in Copenhagen in 1950; Rural Health Council of the American Medical Association in Portland, Ore.; and board meetings of Quaker organizations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. She and her husband hosted numerous international visitors as cooperators in the U.S. Department of State's Program for Leaders and Specialists. Wallace's Farmer Magazine designated her a master homemaker in 1956. She was also named a "merit mother" in 1963 as one of the nominees for Iowa's Mother of the Year.
Survivors include two sons and a daughter-in-law: Elvin of Lillington, N.C., and Dale and Jean of Raleigh, N.C.; two grandchildren: Daniel of New Jersey and Ann of Raleigh, N.C.; five great grandchildren; a sister-in-law, Mrs. Bill Else of Cedar; and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband; three sisters: Faye Else, Lois Prine and Edith Hoover; two brothers: Clarence and Earl (Bill) Else; and a grandson, Reid Hoover.

(from The Oskaloosa Herald, Oskaloosa, Iowa)