Neva Lorraine (Lenning) MANDSAGER

MANDSAGER, LENNING, FRENCH, MESICEK, WHITE, MILLER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 11/3/2010 at 10:55:26

November 3, 2010
Fort Dodge Messenger, Iowa

April 16, 1911 -- October 31, 2010

HUMBOLDT - Neva Lorraine Lenning Mandsager, 99, of Humboldt, passed away Sunday morning, October 31, 2010 at Humboldt North Care Center. She had fallen and broken her pelvis the Tuesday before her death. Funeral services will be held in Our Saviour's Lutheran Church Chapel, Humboldt, Iowa, on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 6 p.m. Visitation will be 1 hour prior to the services at the church. Following the service dinner for guests will be served at the church. The Mason-Lindhart Funeral Home of Humboldt is in charge of arrangements.

Neva was born April 16, 1911 in Humboldt County and attended country school Beaver Eight, near their farm. She graduated from Humboldt High School with her sister, Marjorie, in May, 1928 and then earned a teaching certificate from Iowa State Teachers College, Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1929. Neva taught in rural schools at Beaver Three 1929 1932, Lake Four, 1932-1933, Badger Six, 1933-1935, Norway Two, 1935-1937, and Grove Eight 1938-1940. She had saved the valentines given to her by her students over the years she was a teacher. In 1940, she enrolled at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis, MN for two years. She then worked at a children's orphanage in Beresford, SD for several years until her father's accidental fall in the corncrib on the family farm in November on 1953.

On December 28, 1954 Neva and Melvin Mandsager were married at Trinity Lutheran Church, Hardy, Iowa, where she had been a member all of her life. They lived on their farm in Grove Township. After her husband's death in 1991, she continued to stay on the farm and keep the farming records with the renters. In her later years, she moved to an apartment in Eagle Grove and then to Rotary Ann Care Center, the Villa in Fort Dodge, and to the North Care Center in Humboldt.

Her parents, George and Nora Lenning; sisters, Eunice Lenning in 1940 and Annette Lenning in 1927; and her husband, Melvin, preceded her in death. She is survived by two sisters, Marjorie Lenning French, who will be 101 on November 15, and Frances Mesicek, age 93; her brother, Glen Lenning, age 95; niece, Nilene White of Orlando, FL; nephew, John Mesicek of Palm Springs, CA; step-daughter, Doris Mandsager Miller of Livermore, CO; step-son, Monrad Mandsager of Albert Lea, MN; and their families. Memorials may be made to ELCA World Hunger or Child Voice International.