Maxine Marie (Galer) PEET

PEET, ROWLEY, MULLER, GALER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 1/19/2011 at 10:38:47

December 21, 2010
Fort Dodge Messenger - Iowa

December 20, 1917 -- December 18, 2010

Maxine Peet, 92, died December 18, 2010, at the Marian Home in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Funeral services will be 10:00 a.m. Thursday, December 23 in the chapel of the Laufersweiler-Sievers Funeral Home and a Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m. at Corpus Christi Church. Burial will be 2:00 p.m. on Thursday in the Alden Cemetery. Visitation will be 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday at the funeral home with a Vigil service at 7:00 p.m.

Surviving are daughters, Dr. Susan Rowley, Greentown, Pennsylvania, and Carol Muller, Newark, Delaware; five grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, Frank and Mary Galer, by her brothers, Frank and Michael Galer, and by her husband, Wendell H. Peet.

Maxine Marie Galer was born December 20, 1917, near Berkley, Iowa. She moved with her family to Perry and later to Fort Dodge. She attended Sacred Heart School and High School and Fort Dodge High School, graduating from FDHS in 1936. She was employed at the Boston Store while in high school, and later worked as a cashier and bookkeeper at Buehler Brothers Meat Market, as a cashier at the Rialto and Iowa Theatres, in the advertising department of the Messenger Newspaper and in advertising and display for Sears. On October 14, l946, she married Wendell H. Peet.

The couple farmed in Iowa near Popejoy and Iowa Falls and Allerton, raising purebred Aberdeen Angus cattle. They then lived on the west coast before moving back to the Fort Dodge area in 1959. Mr. Peet died in 1967. Maxine was employed as a news reporter for the Messenger for 24 years, retiring in 1984, after reporting on Messengerland people "from the cradle to the grave". During her years at the Messenger she was women's editor, wrote feature articles including her "Just Between Us" column, and finished her career covering churches and religion. One highlight of her career was meeting Pope John Paul II at the Living History farm in 1979.

Over the years, Maxine Peet was active in local and state organizations, serving as both a member and officer in the Webster County Historical Society, the Fort Dodge Phil Fox Chapter of Izaak Walton League, and the Iowa Society for the Preservation of Historic Landmarks, and as a member of the Hawkeye Community Theatre, the Webster County Genealogy Society, and the Chamber of Commerce Fall Fest Committee. Maxine was active in the Democratic Party and was also a member of the American Carousel Society. Maxine formerly served on the boards of the Hiawatha Council of Camp Fire, the Fort Dodge Symphony, the Friends of the Fort Dodge Public Library, the Fort Dodge Fine Arts Association, the Fort Dodge YWCA, Home, Inc., and the Hawkeye Theatre. Memorials may be left to the Webster County Historical Society or the Marian Home Chapel.