Underwood, Loralie Ann

UNDERWOOD, ZIERKE, MCCOY, MASON, NICHOLSON

Posted By: Marjorie Brunsting-Volunteer (email)
Date: 5/19/2024 at 13:31:07

IRETON, IOWA ~ Loralie Ann Underwood, 46, of Ireton, passed away on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, at University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Visitation with her family will begin at 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, March 26th with the committal service beginning at 2:30 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS in Hawarden, Iowa, with Rev. Joshua Lowe. Burial will follow at Pleasant Valley Cemetery rural Alcester, South Dakota. A Celebration of Life Service will begin at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday at the Porter Funeral Home in Hawarden with House Of Missions And Equipping (HOME) conducting the service.

The services will be recorded and uploaded to Loralie’s obituary page.

Loralie’s family prefers memorials be directed to: Assemblies of God Foster Care Network
https://www.agfostercare.network/
https://giving.ag.org/donate/ag-national-office/natl-foster-care

Loralie Ann Underwood was born August 31, 1977, in Powell, Wyoming, to Terry Lynn Zierke. Loralie spent the first season of her life with her single mother who was working for a better life and relying on her parents for some assistance in raising her daughter. Loralie spent a good chunk of her first decade on this planet living and playing on a small acreage with Grandad's horses and her older cousins, many of them were little boys that she liked to imitate. She liked to say that is how she learned to walk like a cowboy. All she needed was a horse of her own. At about age 6, she and her mother met her father-to-be, David John Zierke; David and Terry wed in 1984. Loralie became the older sister to two younger brothers, John Carl Zierke (1985) and Matthew Ryan Zierke (1986). From then on, she was the big sister, babysitter, prankster, protector. Her adoption to David made her Terry’s eldest child and David’s youngest, as his adoption of Loralie wasn’t finalized until after the boys were born; this is a little joke that David and Loralie bonded over during the last year of her life. She refused to change her last name as she was quite fond of her mother’s maiden name by the time the adoption happened. She idolized her Grandad Basil Underwood and wanted to keep the name she had spent 10 years using.

Loralie was an avid reader with a wild imagination. Stubborn as a mule when she set her mind to something. She was always helpful with the raising of her younger brothers, as her mother worked at the hospital, and her father was a truck driver. The boys often had an hour or two between the bus driver dropping them off on the farm and mom getting home. Loralie got homework routines started and as she got older started preparing dinners for the family. She helped mom wherever she could on the emu farm. During high school Loralie participated in FFA; she finally got her very own mare named Shoshone, in high school. As the boys got older, she helped them with their 4H animals and projects. She assisted her mother with Sunday school for two years. After high school graduation, Loralie spent a few years in Cody, Wyoming. She assisted with the care of her mother’s aging parents while working at the 7D ranch in Cody.

She found a deeper connection with Christ after her time working the dude ranch. She spent much of her life after being born-again in the mission field. Loralie traveled the world witnessing to 17 nations for Cowboys with a Mission and Youth with a Mission. Most of the time she came home with stories of the children that she ministered to. While her calling was in missions, her heart was with the children that she met along the way. Change came in how she was able to give of herself and how she ministered with the help of her parents and many others that she met along the way. She opened her heart and home to foster care and the possibility of adoption and starting a family of her own. 6 special children were placed with her over her years as a foster parent. One of those precious children was placed on track for adoption. Had she not lost her battle to cancer, she would have completed that process with Jaila, her beautiful little girl.

Loralie was preceded in death by her mother, Terry Lynn Zierke (breast cancer). A small detail most might not be aware of, Loralie was officially diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma the day her mother passed: September 20, 2023.

Loralie is survived by her father, David John Zierke; brother, John Carl Zierke; brother, Matthew Ryan Zierke and his wife Clairese; nieces, Abbigail, Phoenix, and Serenity; and a foster daughter, Jaila.

Loralie had a few extended families worth mentioning:
The McCoy family
The Mason family
The Nicholson family

Source: Porter funeral Home online obituary.