Ernst, Elizabeth "Betty" 1908-2007

ERNST, LEMMON, HEMPSTEAD, SCHARENBERG, PORTER

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 12/18/2010 at 07:40:49

The Grinnell Herald-Register; Nov. 12, 2007

ELIZABETH 'BETTY' ERNST

Betty Ernst, 98, of Mayflower Homes in Grinnell, died Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, at the Mayflower Homes Health Care Center.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, in the Carman Center at Mayflower Homes, with pastor Jan Reimers officiating. Interment will be in Mitchellville, Iowa, at a later date.

Born in Victor on Nov. 14, 1908, she was the daughter of Carl Watson and Mertie Lemmon Hempstead. She was raised in various eastern Iowa communities and graduated from Muscatine High School. She received her bachelor's degree from Parsons College and, later, a nursing degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

On Jan. 1, 1934, she married George Campbell Ernst in Stuart, Iowa. The couple lived in Ames; College Park, Md.; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Madison, Wisc. They eventually settled in Lincoln, Neb., where they resided for 27 years and where she worked as a regisered nurse.

The couple moved to Mayflower Homes in Grinnell to retire in 1974.

She was a member of the United Church of Christ-Congregational and the American Association of University Women. While living in Lincoln, she served as a docent of the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Art Gallery and volunteered with Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. In Grinnell, she was a member of the Stewart Library Board of Trustees, the Grinnell Art Gallery Commission, and the Grinnell Historical Museum Board of Directors. She taught Sunday school, both in Lincoln and at the UCC-C in Grinnell; and spent occasional summers as a camp nurse at UCC summer camps in Nebraska and Iowa, also teaching campers her love of the outdoors.

She is survived by a son, Stephen C. Ernst of Berkley, Mich.; two daughters, Mary Jane Scharenberg of West Lafayette, Ind., and Jean Porter of Mission, Kan.; five grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and a brother, Jean Hempstead of Ames. She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, a grandson, a great-grandson, a sister and two brothers.

Memorials may be directed to the Mayflower Homes Human Needs Fund, the United Church of Christ-Congregational in Grinnell or Grinnell Regional Hospice.