Middlebrook, Wilda Lorraine (Jacobson) 1923 - 2014

MIDDLEBROOK, JACOBSON, PEDERSON

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 8/15/2014 at 11:23:48

Wilda Lorraine (Jacobson) Middlebrook passed away peacefully in her sleep on August 6, 2014 at the age of 91. She and her late husband Harlan (1925-2013) had lived in Cresco Assisted Living and the Evans Memorial Home since 2005, after moving there from their country home of 60 years northeast of Cresco.

Wilda was born on April 17, 1923 in her family home in Fremont Township, Winnishiek County, where her parents Ben and Selma (Pederson) Jacobson farmed. The third of six children, she grew up in a large extended family. Her father taught her to appreciate nature and to fish and hunt. She enjoyed tremendously the environs of the Upper Iowa River, and she passed this love of nature on to her children. From her mother, she learned to value family, view life optimistically, and appreciate what she had, even when times were hard.

Wilda was baptized at the Fremont Lutheran Church near her home and attended services there throughout her childhood and adolescence. When she married, she and her husband joined the First United Methodist Church in Cresco. In later years, she and Harlan joined the Zion Methodist Church on Golden Ridge. She was a sincere Christian and active in many church-related social activities.

Wilda began her long educational career as an elementary student at the one-room, eight-grade Fremont 4 country school near her parents’ home. After graduating from high school in Cresco, she earned her teacher’s certificate and taught at Fremont 4, where her pupils included two of her younger sisters. She later interrupted her teaching career to raise her family, but in 1968 she enrolled at Luther College in Decorah and earned her degree in 1971. She then taught elementary school at Turkey Valley until her retirement in 1987.

Her hobbies included reading, photography, travel, sewing, playing music (accordion and piano), and writing poetry and short stories.

Wilda and Harlan met in high school, dated for four years, and were married on June 3, 1945. Together they raised four sons—Kevin (1950), Rodney (1952), Steven (1953), and Boyd (1965)—on the family farm.

Wilda is survived by her sons and by eight grandchildren (Jeb, Lindsay, Lia, Drew, Hanna, Mariel, Arianna, and Sophia).

Preceding her in death were her infant daughter Melissa Kay (1949), her mother (1983) and father (1989), and her husband of 67 years.

Source: Hindt-Hudek Funeral Home database

Winneshiek Obituaries maintained by Bruce Kuennen.
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