Need to start today by sharing some sad news for those of you that don’t know. My Aunt Barbara passed away a few days ago. I wanted to share her obituary.
Barbara Bernice Kessler Bennett O’Connor, 90, of Fort Dodge passed away Thursday, February 23, 2023, at the University of Iowa Hospital. Visitation will be held on Thursday, March 2, 2023 from 4:00 to 7:00 PM at the Laufersweiler Funeral Home. There will also be a church visitation Friday, March 3,2023 from 9:30 to 10:15 AM at Holy Trinity Church followed by a Mass. Burial will follow at Corpus Christi Cemetery.
She is survived by her daughter Mary Beth Frischmeyer and her husband Michael of Fort Dodge, son Bennett and his wife Diane of Fort Dodge, and daughter Becky Fideler and her husband Dr. Brad of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin as well as grandchildren Connor Frischmeyer, Megan Frischmeyer, Cara Bartingale, Erin Clavey, Dr. Kate Fideler, Emily Fideler, Elizabeth Fideler, four great-grandchildren, sister Linda Bennett, and brother Jack Kessler. She was preceded in death by her husband Robert J. O’Connor, parents Henry and Bernice Kessler, John and Bernice Bennett, and brothers David and Gerald Bennett.
Barbara Bernice Kessler Bennett O’Connor was born on June 14, 1932, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids, IA. She graduated from Boone High School in 1950 and then attended Saint Joseph’s Mercy School of Nursing in Sioux City, IA, where she graduated in 1954. She worked as a staff nurse at Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Fort Dodge, Iowa for several years. On April 16, 1955 she married Robert John O’Connor at Sacred Heart Church in Boone, Iowa. They were set up on a blind date by their friends Chuck and Norman Doyle. The couple resided in Fort Dodge where Bob was in the insurance business with his father John.
The first school nurse’s office for St. Edmond was established by Barbara in 1977. All the equipment for her office was from the old Mercy Hospital; including the beds. In addition, she was one of the first 60 hour, now 75-hour, Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) instructors at Iowa Central Community College where she began teaching in 1971 and continued until 2019. Barbara also led the Home Health Aide and Medication Management classes at the college and administered testing of the CNA’s there. From 1983 to 1986 she was employed as psychiatric nurse with the North Central Iowa Mental Health Center, now UnityPoint Health-Berryhill Center. She donated time to the St Mark’s Free Community Health Clinic as well. In 2011, she was awarded the Messenger Nurses Excellence Award.
In her free time Barbara enjoyed playing bridge in several clubs and Mah Jong with a group of friends and attended “tag” sales. She participated in the PTA and other parent groups of Corpus Christi Academy while her children were in school. Other groups and clubs she enjoyed, and was a member of, included the: Wahkonsa Chapter of Questers, Soldier Creek Chapter of Questers, Ingelside Club, Art Club, Catholic Daughters of America, Chapter MT and currently JX of the P.E.O, Red Hat Society, Fort Dodge Area Symphony Board, and the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Auxiliary. Barbara was a docent, and a donor, at the Blanden Art Museum. She also participated in the Square Circle Church and served as a Eucharistic Minister for Corpus Christi church.
It seems a life well lived. She will be missed.
+++++++
My grandpa gave me a wheat penny and I kept it in my pocket
I had big plans in my backyard to build me a space rocket
I talked to my brother on a fake CB that I made from a Tic-Tac box
I packed my snowballs nice and tight
And in the middle, I put rocksDon’t trade in your Tic-Tac box for a ball on the end of the chain
And don’t go spending grandpa’s pennies buying into the game
You gotta keep your heart young
Don’t go growin’ old before your time has come
You can’t take back what you have done
You gotta keep your heart young
-Brandi Carlile
Thursdays are for flowers! This collection of flower pictures was taken in my yard.
Still plenty of flower pictures to share. I don’t want to say I have an infinite supply of flower pictures, but flowers are going to poking through the ground in central Iowa shortly. Then flowertography season in on!