Elsie Victoria (Swanson) WESTPHAL

WESTPHAL, MCCOWN, SWANSON, CARLSON

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 8/25/2013 at 15:06:12

October 5, 1916 ---- March 31, 2008

Funeral services for Elsie V. Westphal, age 91, of Stewartville, Minn., will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 3, 2008 at Rochester Covenant Church with the Rev. Gary Downing officiating. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service Thursday at the church. Burial will be 11 a.m. Saturday, April 5, 2008 at the Fort Dodge Memorial Park Cemetery, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Elsie Victoria Swanson was born on Oct. 5, 1916 in Colfax Township, Iowa to parents Fred and Hulda (Carlson) Swanson. She died on March 31, 2008 at the Stewartville Care Center in Stewartville. Elsie graduated from Palmer High School and attended Teacher’s College in Storm Lake, Iowa. She married Russell W. Westphal on Nov. 6, 1938 in Pomeroy, Iowa. Russell died on Feb. 1, 2001. Elsie taught school in Northern Iowa and the couple moved to Rochester in 1957, where she worked for Donaldson’s and Sears. In 1974, they moved to Osage, Minn., where they owned and operated the Whistling Pines Motel. In 1990, they moved to Fairmont, Minn. and she moved to the Stewartville Care Center in 2001. Elsie was a charter member of Rochester Covenant Church, taught Sunday school, played piano and sang in the choir. She enjoyed fishing, gardening and crafts.

Survivors include her three sons, Warren (Debra) Westphal of Rochester, Minn., Gordon (Eileen) Westphal of Rochester, Minn., and Greg (Judy) Westphal of Mankato, Minn.; six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren; one sister, Ethel McCown of Pensacola, Fla. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband and one brother.

April 3, 2008
Fort Dodge Messenger - Iowa