Marie (Albers) GRUIS

GRUIS, ALBERS, REIDEL, SAGE, BURGARDT, ANSLEY, DANNEMAN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 5/24/2009 at 15:52:34

Mason City Globe Gazette, Iowa
October 16, 1996

MESERVEY, IA -- Marie Gruis, 82, of Meservey, died Monday (Oct. 14, 1996) at the North Iowa Mercy Health Center East, Mason City. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the First Reformed Church, Meservey, with the Rev. Rodney Meester, officiating. Burial will be in the Meservey Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Grarup Funeral Home, Meservey.

Marie Gruis was born on Jan. 11, 1914, the daughter of Herman and Ida (Reidel) Albers on the family farm near Swaledale. She finished her 12 years of schooling in Swaledale and went on to take a year of bookkeeping and typing. While still on the family farm, she worked for a doctor as a midwife having delivered around 50 babies into the community. In 1944, she moved to Thornton where she became the proud proprietor of a cafe where she did the majority of the cooking all day long. Five years later, she moved to Meservey, where she purchased a grocery store. A few years into its operation, she constructed a new building to operate out of until 1976, when she sold the business and retired. During that time, she was united in marriage to Ben Gruis in 1956. Following the death of her husband, approximately two months after their marriage, she managed to talk her way, as a single, working and widowed woman, into adopting a set of twins, age 12, from the orphanage on July 10, 1961. After raising them, she proceeded to become a foster parent of two girls. Once she had her family raised, she continued to babysit for
children from 1976 to 1980. Marie enjoyed raising flowers, riding her stationary bicycle 20 minutes each day and entertaining her family and friends. Her hobbies included doing embroidery work, making afghans and lap blankets for the residents of Opportunity Village in Clear Lake. She was a member of the First Reformed Church of Meservey.

She is survived by one son, Leslie Gruis of Meservey; three daughters, Jessie Sage and her husband, Donald, of Mason City, Mary Burgardt of Greensboro, N.C., and Sara Ansley of Cedar Falls; eight grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; two brothers, John Albers of Mason City, and Martin Albers of Hubbard, Ore.; one sister, Lydia Danneman of Folda, Minn. She was preceded in death by her husband, parents and two brothers.