Elizabeth (Kirsten) TERNBERG

KIRSTEN, TERNBERG, HITCHMAN, HILL

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 9/20/2006 at 16:21:35

Elizabeth Mary Ternberg, 92, of Clarion, passed away Wednesday, October 8, 2003 at the USA Healthcare Center, Clarion. Services were held Saturday, October 11th at the First Lutheran Church, Clarion. Elizabeth Mary Ternberg was born January 30, 1911, in the Premier Diamond Mine in Transvaal, South Africa, the daughter of Frederick and Mabel Hitchman Kirsten. In 1913, the family moved to Australia where they settled on an orchard in Boronia, a suburb of Melbourne. Later they moved to Baldwin, a suburb closer to the city and remained there until 1923 when they moved to the United States and settled in Mason City. After completing high school, Betty worked in a photography studio retouching negatives and coloring photos. In 1936, she met and married a photographer, Erik Ternberg. The couple had their own studio in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, then in Viroqua, Wisconsin and later in Clarion. After the death of her husband in 1954, Betty continued to run the studio. During this time she took a foster daughter, Donna Craig into her home. In 1959, she sold the studio and became the parish secretary of First Lutheran Church in Clarion. In September of 1963, she received a Letter of Call from Central Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas where she served as parish secretary until 1980. For the next five years she worked with two year olds in a Mothers Day Out program for a Methodist Church in Dallas. In 1986, Betty retired and returned to Clarion to live.

Betty is survived by a foster daughter, Donna Hill and husband, Robert of Clarion; four grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandchildren; one nephew and one niece. She was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Erik; and two sisters.

October 23, 2003
© Wright County Monitor 2003