Orpha Belle (Smith) OSTENDORF

OSTENDORF, SMITH, BOWEN, STROMER, BOVENMYER, DEVARY

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 7/16/2010 at 13:09:15

GARNER, IA — Orpha B. Ostendorf, 95, formerly of Meservey, died Saturday (Jan. 24, 1998) at Concord Care Center. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Salem United Methodist Church in Meservey with the Rev. Jim Goechenouer officiating. Burial will be in the Meservey Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at Grarup Funeral Home in Meservey.

Orpha Belle Ostendorf was born on the family farm north of Meservey to Robert Smith and Annie Belle (Bowen) Smith on July 18, 1902. She received her education in rural schools and graduated from Meservey High School in 1922. She attended Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls and for four years taught the rural school she had attended north of Meservey. On June 8, 1926, she married Harry J. Ostendorf and they began farming north of Meservey. In March 1928 they moved to a farm northwest of Meservey where they farmed until 1959. Here they raised their six children. Orpha was active in the church, which she had joined at age 14. She taught Sunday school and Bible school and was a 4-H leader. In 1959, they retired to Meservey. Harry was a salesman and adjuster for Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Des Moines. He passed away in 1978. Orpha stayed on in the home in Meservey until December 1990 when she moved to the Prairie View Apartments in Garner. She had been an active member of the Senior Citizens Club since it was organized in 1972 in Meservey, and served as treasurer until 1984. She moved to Concord Care Center in Garner in October 1997.

She is survived by her two sons, Arnett Ostendorf and his wife, Jean, Klemme, and Gene and his wife, Frances, Rockford; three daughters, Harriet Stromer and her husband, Delwyn, West Des Moines, Darlen Bovenmyer and her husband, Keith, Garwin, and Dorothy DeVary and her husband, Virgil, Garner; one daughter-in-law, Joye Ostendorf, Meservey; 17 grandchildren; 42 great-grandchildren; and one great-great grandchild. She was preceded in death by her father, in 1960; her mother, in 1904; her husband, Harry, in 1978; her brother, Dale, in 1968; her son, Robert Ostendorf, in 1988; and two grandsons, Randall Stromer in 1970 and Todd Ostendorf at birth.

January 25, 1998
Mason City (Iowa) Globe Gazette