Crowley, Cora 1900-1996

CROWLEY, LANGEROCK, SMITS

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 6/21/2008 at 14:41:41

CORA CROWLEY

LE MARS, Iowa—Cora Crowley, 96, of LeMars, died Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1996, at Brentwood Good Samaritan Center in LeMars.

Services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. James Catholic Church in LeMars with the Rev. Richard Ries officiating. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery. Visitation will be after 2 p.m. today at the Feuerstein Funeral Home in LeMars. An Altar Society rosary will be at 4 p.m. with a Scriptural wake service at 7 p.m. at the funeral home.

Mrs. Crowley was born April 23, 1900, in Maurice, the daughter of Cornelius and Eliza (Smits) Langerock. She grew up at Maurice and attended elementary school there. She moved to LeMars when she was in high school and graduated from LeMars Central High School in 1921. She played the piano for the silent movies at the Royal Theatre in LeMars.

On April 2, 1923, she married Earle Crowley in LeMars. The couple made their home in LeMars. He died in 1932. She had worked as a cook for the Union Hotel in LeMars and later opened a drive-inn and then the Royal Sandwich Shop in LeMars. She operated Cora’s Tea Room in LeMars and also catered at the Elks Club and Country Club. During the late 1940’s and 1950’s, she played the organ for the Starl Olson Trio at the Club Debonair in LeMars.

For many years she prepared meals for several LeMars service clubs weekly dinners, retiring in 1985. Since 1992, she had been a resident of Brentwood Good Samaritan Center.

Mrs. Crowley received numerous awards for her work in the community. In 1974, the LeMars Chamber of Commerce awarded her the Citizen With a Heart Award. She received an award from the LeMars Daily Sentinel for Meritorious Service as Good Deed Doer in 1975. The Sioux City Journal-Tribune honored her as a Woman of Achievement. The Rotary Lions and Sertoma Clubs honored her in Appreciation for 28 Years of Service. She also received a Service of Excellence award in 1987 from Westmar College.

Mrs. Crowley was a member of St. James Catholic Church and the Altar Society.

Survivors include two sons and their wives, Orville and Becky Crowley, of Des Moines and Earle and Jane Crowley of Shenandoah; three daughters and their husbands, Shirley and Elmer Assein of Ireton, Gail and Merlyn Hemphill of Tacoma, Wash., and Janice and Cy Heissel, of Storm Lake; a daughter-in-law, Dorothy Crowley, of LeMars; 19 grandchildren; 37 great-grandchildren; and seven great great-grandchildren.

She was also preceded in death by two sons in infancy and a son, Wayne Crowley; two sisters, Mrs. Anna DeJager and Mrs. Mary Kuiken; a brother, Arnold Langerock and two stepbrothers.

~Source: The Sioux City Journal—part of the D. Easton Obituary Collection