Grooters, Lois Mildred (Mrs. Laurence) 1915-1988

GROOTERS, HOSPERS, HINDS

Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg - volunteer (email)
Date: 7/2/2014 at 05:34:53

Sioux County Capital August 4, 1988

Lois Mildred Hospers was born on September 23, 1915 in Orange City, the daughter of William H. and Marian Hinds Hospers. She attended grade school and high school and Northwestern Junior College in Orange City. Lois graduated from Grinnell College at Grinnell, Iowa in 1938. She then taught high school English and drama for five years.

On January 26, 1944 at Orange City after having worked as a U.S.O. director, she married Laurence Grooters, a warrant officer and band director in the U.S. Army Air Force. After Mr. Grooters completed his masters degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, the Grooters moved to Pella, Iowa in 1950. Mr. Grooters was hired to teach at Central College and Lois taught English and drama at the high school.

Mrs. Grooters was very active in community and church service. Community activities included working with the Welcome Wagon, the Pella Historical Society, and the Republican Party. She also did substitute teaching in speech. In the Reformed Church of Pella, she held the office of elder, having been the first woman elder in the Classis of Pella, where she was ordained on January 4, 1976. She worked with the Ladies Aid, the Women's Guild and served on the Education Council at the church.

On Saturday, July 23, she passed away suddenly in Glenwood, Minnesota at the age of 72 years and ten months. Surviving her are her husband, Laurence; two children: Gardner L. Grooters of Oskaloosa, Iowa; Beverly Sue, Mrs. Frank Thompson of Glenwood, Minnesota; seven grandchildren: Geneva Sue, Yolanda Sue, Miranda Lee Ann, Cassondra Kay Grooters; Lori Ann, Timothy Lee and John Douglas Thompson; her two sisters Marian Edith, Mrs. Alfred Manwillcr of Florence, South Carolina; and Marjorie, Mrs. Martin Weeks of Vermillion, South Dakota.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her father who died March 25, 1964; her mother on May 9, 1973; her brother, Jackson Hospers, on January 7, 1955 and his wife, her sister-in-law, Berdina Hill Hospers, who died September 22, 1966.