Olive M. (Webber) NOREM

NOREM, WEBBER, HOGAN, FOSTER, MCDONALD, OAKLEY, THOMPSON, MANSKE, BREES, DYER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 10/2/2012 at 17:52:02

August 26, 1937 --- December 19, 2011

Olive Norem, age 74, of Marshalltown, died on Monday, December 19, 2011 at The Taylor House Hospice in Des Moines. Funeral services will be 10:30 AM Thursday December 22 at the Surls Funeral Home in Iowa Falls with visitation 1 hour prior to service.

Olive M. Webber Norem was born August 26, 1937 in the former Webber family home located at 222 Washington Ave., in Iowa Falls, Iowa. She was the oldest of two children born to Doctor Scott I. and Eva Elizabeth Hogan Webber. According to an old family tale, lightning struck the chimney in this house at the exact time she was born. What a way to enter the world. In searching old newspaper and weather reports of that day, nothing could be found to substantiate this, but it was an interesting topic of discussion at times. When she was age 4, her brother, Oscar J. Webber joined the family. Sometime between then and the age of five, the family moved to a duplex on Depot Street on the east side of Iowa Falls. Olive lived in this duplex until she married and left home. In the fall of 1942, she started her formal education at the Julia O'Neil School in Iowa Falls and completed fourth grade there. In October of 1943, her mother passed away---leaving her father, Scott, with the awesome job of raising two small children, ages 6 and 2 by himself. Scott was age 71 at that time. Life has not been the same since her mother died. Olive always said that losing her mother is the one loss she never quite got over. She often told her children that she thought about her mom almost every day. Olive often said that it was not easy growing up without her mom. Olive attended Central School from grade 5 through 8. She started high school in Iowa Falls with the class of 1955. When she was a senior, she met and married Selmer 0. (Sam) Norem, a farmer from Williams, Iowa. She did not graduate with her class. She moved from her father's home to a farm near Williams and became a farmer's wife. This marriage ended in divorce 10 years later. Olive never remarried. After the divorce was final, she became interested in finishing high school and attended GED classes. She was more than likely one of the first persons in Hardin County to complete high school this way and earn a GED certificate. This opened many doors for her and in 1972, she applied for admission into the Human Services program at Ellsworth Community College for that fall. In 1974, she graduated from Ellsworth with an Associate's Degree in Human Services. She liked the college life and shortly after graduation from Ellsworth, applied for admission to the Social Work program at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. She was accepted, moved herself and her family to Cedar Falls and in the fall of 1974, started classes in her chosen field. In the summer of 1976, she graduated from U.N.I., and had earned a Bachelor's Degree with a Social Work major and certificate. That same year, her daughter, Kathy, graduated from Northern University High School. Olive enjoyed her college years and often said she would gladly do them all over if she could. In the summer of 1977, she was offered a job as a child protective worker in Marshall County. This is when and why she moved herself and her family to Marshalltown, Iowa. She has lived there ever since. She always said that no matter where she might live, Iowa Falls would always be home. In 1981, she accepted a lateral transfer to the Iowa Veteran's Home and worked as a state licensed Social Worker 3 there for the next 20 plus years. She retired in 2001 due to health concerns.
She often said she was very proud of her Webber family and it's history. She was proud of her brother and her 5 children and the fact that she went back to school and graduated from college with five children at home that she was raising by herself. She was very proud to have been part of the history of the Iowa Veteran's Home and her employment there. All totaled, she spent 24 plus years working as a licensed Social Worker 3 for the State of Iowa.

She is very proud of her grandsons, Chris and Andrew and her granddaughter, Kristy and her great-grandsons, Levi and Caisen Foster. She enjoyed genealogy and writing items for the family history, family get-togethers, interacting with her two grandsons, Chris and Andrew and her granddaughter, Kristy. She enjoyed traveling with her brother, the game "Upwords", crossword puzzles, Chinese food, eating out, dancing, a good movie, cribbage, the Empress river boat in Iowa Falls, small dogs, and she loved Iowa and felt it truly was a "treasure between two rivers". She and her brother spent many, many hours looking for items for the family history and traveled to many states to find information and to meet with people who had information for their Webber, Hogan histories. She enjoyed collecting coins and has left many sets and coins for her children and several grandchildren. She collected Dept. 56 buildings and stopped collecting them when she had collected 120 of them. When she and her brother would go on a trip, she would buy an afghan as a remembrance of that trip. She has collected over 115 of them. She and her brother traveled to most of the lower 48 states and Canada. She loved Branson, Missouri and traveled there each chance she got. She also loved the beautiful rocky shores of Maine, especially the area around Booth Bay Harbor and Portland Head Lighthouse and visiting the Oxford area where a lot of her ancestors lived. She was one of the original members of the Hospitali-Tea Red Hat Ladies and was a member of the Red Hat Mamas.

She is survived by her 5 children: Russell S. Norem of Des Moines, Kathy McDonald of Bondurant, Marie (Mark) Oakley of Ackworth, Thomas A. (Lori) Norem of Des Moines, and Anthony T. (Karen) Norem of Centerville, Ohio, her only sibling, Oscar J. Webber of Marshalltown, Iowa, her 5 grandchildren, Ashley and Eli Norem of Des Moines, Christopher (Ashley) Foster of Ankeny, Andrew McDonald of Indianola, Iowa and Kristy of Centerville, Ohio and two great-grandsons, Levi Ryan and Caisen Scott Foster of Ankeny and her 2 favorite cousins, Jolene Thompson and Linda Manske of Iowa Falls and her life-long friend, Darlene Brees of Marshalltown. Olive will be re-united with her mother, Eva Elizabeth Hogan Webber and her father, Dr. Scott I. Webber as she will be placed next to them in the Webber family plot in Union Cemetery in Iowa Falls. She never had a chance to know her mother in this life---perhaps she will in her new life. Family members preceding her are her grandparents, Moses A. and Olive L. Dyer Webber, James and Martha Olive Hogan, her parents Scott and Eva Webber and a daughter, Diane Sue who died as an infant, her many aunts, uncles, cousins and her beloved dog, a Maltese name "Toshie". The family ask that in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Animal Rescue League of Marshalltown.

http://www.surls.com/obituaries.html