Berge, Betty Ann (Mrs. Eldon R.) 1922-2006

BERGE, COOPER, EDWARDS

Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg - volunteer (email)
Date: 9/20/2014 at 13:34:23

Sioux Center News December 20, 2006

Betty Berge
Betty Ann (Cooper) Berge, 84, of Hawarden died Monday, December 11, at Mercer Island Care and Rehab Center in Mercer Island, Washington, following a brief illness, Berge was born November 4, 1922, in Hawarden, the daughter of Sam and Stella (Edwards) Cooper. She graduated from high school in Hawarden and went on to school at the University of South Dakota, where she met her future husband. She graduated from the University of Iowa. On July 10, 1944, in the same Hawarden home where she, was born, she married Elden R. "Shorty" Berge, who, by that time had enlisted in the Armed Forces. Shorty thereafter, he received his orders which sent him to Europe and he entered combat on Christmas Day in 1944.

Following the war, she lived and traveled with her husband in a variety of places including the Rheims and Heidelberg in Europe and Fort Lewis and Fort Knox in the United States before settling in Hawarden. Together, they built and lived in their home on Avenue N for many years before moving to their South Dakota farm home, near Hawarden, in 1970. There they continued to operate a productive grain, farming operation until they retired in 1985. In 1990, they sold their farm home, enabling them to travel in the summer and to spend their winters in Arizona. Subsequent to the death of her husband in 1993, she continued to live at the Venture Out Retirement Community in Mesa, Arizona, until she broke her hip in late 2005, At that time, she moved, to the Mercer Island Care and Rehab Center, where she could be closer to her two children. She had a great interest in genealogy and led to her involvement with the Big Sioux River Valley Historical Society for which she served on the first board of directors.

Later, she chaired the committee to place a large Sioux quartzite rock a few miles south of Hawarden at the site of the birthplace of Sioux County. She alsoloved the outdoors and was an avid bird watcher.

She is survived by a daughter and her husband, Bobby Ann and Curtis Pearson of Seattle, Washington; and a son, Matthew of Woodinville, Washington; and two grandsons