Helen B. (Lippens) KOLLS NOONAN

NOONAN, LIPPENS, VANDENBERGHE, KOLLS, WILLIAMS, RYAN, TOMKE, GRAMS

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 5/5/2008 at 16:32:54

Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
May 18, 2004

Helen B. Noonan, 83, of Dyersville, Iowa died Sunday morning, May 16, 2004, at Mercy Medical Center-Dyersville, following a long illness. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Francis Xavier Basilica, Dyersville, with the Rev. Msgr. Ed Petty officiating. Burial will be in St. Francis Cemetery. Friends may call from 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Kramer Funeral Home, Dyersville, where there will be a parish scripture service at 4 p.m.

She was born on Feb. 8, 1921, in Rock Island, Ill., daughter of Peter and Ella (Vandenberghe) Lippens. She attended St. Mary's School in Rock Island through eighth grade and went on to St. Joseph School for her freshman year and graduated from Rock Island High School in 1939. She worked at the Rock Island Chamber of Commerce as office secretary until 1943.

She married Lt. Truman Kolls, of Rock Island. A son, Jeff, was born in 1947. Lt. Kolls was killed in an Air Force plane in 1954. Helen and Jeff moved to Glendale, Mo., where she met Maurice Noonan. They were married on Aug. 13, 1960, at Mary Queen of Peace Church, Webster Grove, Mo. Helen was a volunteer at Oak Crest Manor, and later wrote a weekly column called "Seen & Scenes" for her husband's newspaper, the Dyersville Commercial, on the current and past lives of the residents. She served on the Mercy Care Review Committee for the nursing home from 1982 to 2002. Helen had donated 10,000 hours at Oak Crest Manor and Mercy Medical Center-Dyersville. She was also a member of the Dyersville Federated Women's Club.

Surviving are her husband, Maurice; a son, Jeffrey Kolls, of Corpus Christi, Texas; two granddaughters, Jennifer (Lee) Williams, of Houston, and Susan Kolls, of Beaumont, Texas; three great-grandchildren, Brandon and Sara Williams and Nicholas Ryan; three brothers-in-law, Jim Noonan and Dick Tomke, both of Eagle Grove, Iowa, and Dick Noonan, of Humboldt, Iowa; and many nieces and nephews. She also was preceded in death by a sister, Florence Grams. Memorials are preferred to Cookie Scherrman's Haiti Fund.