Jean Betty Peterson 1930 - 2024

PETERSON, GOFF

Posted By: Connie J Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/3/2024 at 16:38:01

Sioux City Journal
17 February 2024

Jean Betty Peterson died Feb. 8, 2024, in Kansas City, age 94. She was born February 8, 1930, in a house on South Steele Street in Sioux City, Iowa, to Susan and Frank Goff.

She joined siblings Althea, Jim, Dwight, and Doris. Her mother was a longtime restaurateur, and her father worked in many fields, including livestock buying and real estate.

After graduating from East High School in Sioux City, she worked at the battery factory (now the Hard Rock Casino), and later took business courses in Washington, D.C. In later years she worked at Alf’s Manufacturing, Zenith, and retired from Knox Gelatin, now Gelita USA, in Sioux City.

Jean was the soup and sandwich girl at The Cobblestone Ballroom in Storm Lake, Iowa, when she met John S. Peterson, a young sailor returning from the war. They married March 26, 1949, in Storm Lake.

She was the loving and no-nonsense mother to three knuckleheads, John, Jerry, and Jim, the best mother-in-law to Nancy, Chris, Lin, Charlene, Debbie, and Michelle, sweet grandma to Jade, Ian, Zac, Kara, Reanna, and Eric, honorary grandma to many, including Kristi, Kyla, Kim, and Tyler, and great-grandma to eight.

She welcomed all to her little home, and her hospitality, generosity, and potato salad, were famous. She was the force field that held a family together. Free spirit, hard worker, devoted mother and wife, loyal, fun-loving, salt of the earth...all these describe her.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, siblings, many friends, her beloved German shepherds and lots of cats.

We won’t see her like again.