Thorland, Mary L. (1924-2016)
THORLAND, DOYLE, OSTER, WEITZ, RABB, BUKALSKI, HAMLIN
Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 12/30/2016 at 16:53:01
Mary L. Thorland
June 23, 1924 - December 7, 2016The oldest of seven children, Mary Lavonne (Doyle) Thorland was born to Helen (Linn) and Richard (Claire) Doyle at the family home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on June 23, 1924. She graduated from Dayton (Iowa) High School in 1942. During her senior year in high school, her parents and siblings all moved to Thompson, Iowa. Mary, however, stayed in Dayton to finish her senior year and help care for the daughter of the woman boarding her.
After graduating, Mary joined her family in Thompson. Between 1942 and 1943, she worked as a waitress at a café in Thompson. From 1943 to 1944, she worked as a hired girl. From her work, she wanted to save enough money to put herself through teaching school. In 1944, she earned that teaching certificate at the Iowa State Teacher’s College in Estherville. Next, she taught in a one room school house from 1944 – 1947 in Linden Township, south of Thompson.
On December 26, 1944, she married Daniel Thorland at the Bethany Lutheran Church parsonage in Thompson, Iowa. Subsequently, they had four children: Jacqueline, Larry, Vicky, and Cynthia.
Besides raising her children, Mary, actively, participated in the Bethany Lutheran Church circle, taught Sunday school and Bible school, and volunteered for many other needs at the church. She, also, volunteered as a 4-H leader. An avid knitter, seamstress, quilter, bridge player, and gardener, she loved nature and especially enjoyed watching birds.
She and Daniel (one of eleven children) had fifty or so nieces and nephews. They both valued family and made every effort to attend the baptisms, confirmations, graduations, and weddings of all those family members – often driving long distances to do so.
Mary continued to live on the farm near Thompson for one year after Daniel passed away before moving to Deerfield in Urbandale to be closer to her two daughters, Vicky and Cynthia.
Preceded in death by her husband, Daniel; her daughter, Jacqueline; her son, Larry; and four siblings, Dorothy, Phyllis, Clarice, and Bill, Mary is survived by her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren: Vicky Thorland-Oster, and her children, Nathaniel, and his wife, Sasha, and their son, Gray, and daughter, Audie, of Chandler, Arizona, and Jessica, of Des Moines, Iowa; Cynthia Thorland and her husband Fritz Weitz, of Des Moines, Iowa; Jacqueline’s husband, Richard Rabb, of Omaha, Nebraska, and their children, Carla Bukalski, and her husband, Mark, and their daughter, Jackie, and son, Alex, of Oak Park, Illinois, Daniel Rabb, and his wife, Laura, and their daughter, Karen Grace, of San Jose, California; her sister, Charlotte Jean Hamlin, of Zimmerman, Minnesota, and her brother, Richard Doyle, and his wife, Cindy, of West Des Moines, Iowa.
Mary passed away on Wednesday, December 7, 2016, at Deerfield Residential Living in Urbandale, Iowa, from complications related to her more than ten-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Graveside services will be held for the family at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 10, 2016, at Rose Hill Cemetery in Thompson, Iowa. A celebration of Mary’s life will be held in Thompson on June 10, 2017.
Donations may be made to the following organizations: The Alzheimer’s Association, Friends Winnebago County Conservation Foundation, or the Iowa 4-H Foundation.
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Winnebago Obituaries maintained by Cheryl Siebrass.
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