Ernest Walter Frederick "Ernie" Koeppen 1915 - 1998

KOEPPEN, SCHWARZ, HERRINGTON

Posted By: Connie Swearingen-Volunteer (email)
Date: 8/9/2014 at 23:38:31

2 November 1998

MAPLETON, Iowa — Ernest Walter Frederick "Ernie" Koeppen, 83, of Mapleton died Saturday, Oct. 31, 1998, at a Sioux City hospital.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Mapleton, with Chaplain Leland Schmidt officiating. Burial will be in Mount Hope Cemetery. Visitation will be after 2 p.m. today, with a prayer service at 7 p.m. with the Rev. Daniel Torkelson officiating, at Armstrong Funeral Home in Mapleton.

Mr. Koeppen was born May 21, 1915, near Ricketts, Iowa, the son of Louie and Alma (Schwarz) Koeppen. He was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith. He moved with his family to the Ute and Mapleton area as a child.

He married Frances Herrington on Sept. 7, 1939, in Ute. The couple farmed in the Mapleton area until 1947, when they moved to Canada. He worked as a irrigation farmer for six years before returning to the Mapleton area. In 1953, they bought a small farm near Mapleton. He was employed with road construction from 1956 to 1970. He then owned arid operated a backhoe and trenching service until 1984. In 1975, he owned a Roto Rooter franchise, selling it in 1993. He retired to Mapleton in 1994.

He was a member of St. Matthew Lutheran Church.

Survivors include his wife; a son and his wife, Larry and Beverly of Four Seasons, Mo.; two daughters, Ardis Wilson and Zola and her husband, Wayne Kafton, all of Mapleton; a brother, Herbert of Mapleton; a sister and her husband, Marie and Lester Miller of Moses Lake, Wash.; a brother-in-law, Alvie Hinrichsen of Galva, Iowa; eight grandchildren, Valerie Plambeck, Teresa Coenen, Angela Seifert, Karen Jessen, Timothy Kafton, Shawnie Koeppen, Heather Hulber and Justin Koeppen; and 14 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by two brothers, Henry and Louis; a sister, Elsie Hinrichsen; a son-in-law, James Wilson; and two sisters-in-law, Edna and Esther Koeppen.