LaVern Garberding, age 98, of Albert City, Iowa, died Wednesday, May 7, 2014, at the Pleasant View Nursing Home in Albert City, Iowa.

Funeral services will be held Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. at the Zion Lutheran Church of rural Storm Lake, Iowa. Interment will be in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery. Visitation with the family present will take place from 9:30 a.m. until service time at the church. The Sliefert Funeral Home in Albert City is in charge of arrangements.

LaVern Garberding, age 98, died Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at the Pleasant View Nursing Home in Albert City.

LaVern Elise Marie Specketer was born October 6, 1915 in Diamond Township, Cherokee, Iowa. She was baptized on October 13, 1915 in her parent’s home because whooping cough was going around. LaVern caught it anyway, and her parents sat with her day and night so that she would not choke. She was confirmed on March 24, 1929.

For her early schooling LaVern attended three different country schools. Beginning in 5th grade and through 8th grade, she attended St. Johns Lutheran Parochial school in Hanover, Iowa. Every day she walked one mile each way to school. Her teacher, Jacob Schmidt, taught all 8 grades, and introduced her to the love of teaching. Already at this early age, LaVern would arrive at school one-half hour early so that she could help the other children with their memory work.

LaVern was married to Gilbert Garberding on January 10, 1937. They purchased a farm in Lincoln Township, 4 miles west of Albert City and moved there in March of that year. Together they actively farmed the land for 45 years. They retired in 1982, and Gilbert passed away in 1986. LaVern continued to live on and actively participate in managing the farm until October 2011 when she moved to Pleasant View Home in Albert City. Gilbert and LaVern were blessed with two children, Larry and Ardys.

LaVern was always ready to help people, and she showed the love of the Lord in all her work. After family, education and teaching came next in importance. LaVern was self-educated, and she never stopped learning. She furthered her education by taking night school courses, television courses from Morningside College, and many Old and New Testament religious courses. Teaching was her deeply loved vocation, especially teaching religion. She started teaching Sunday School at Zion Lutheran Church in 1947. She added a two hour weekly Confirmation class in 1963 followed by a weekly Bible Study class at Pleasant View Home in 1984. In all she taught Sunday School 54 years, Confirmation 40 years and led the nursing home Bible Study over 28 years. She spent many hours each week preparing separate lessons for each of these groups. LaVern’s other church activities included Sunday School Superintendent from 1949 to 1954, member of Ladies Aid and church choir beginning in 1946, and she served on various committees.

Community work was also important to LaVern. In the 1950s she helped entertain patients at the Cherokee Mental Hospital. She volunteered in numerous ways at the Albert City school by helping in the library, with reading classes, with fund raisers, and with speech contests. She started serving on the Care Review Committee at Pleasant View Home in 1985. For over thirty years she was an official for Buena Vista County elections, and she was chairman for twenty of those years. LaVern also made time for friendships and was a member of two neighborhood clubs.

LaVern leaves to mourn her passing: a son, Larry and his wife Ann, Osprey, Florida; a daughter, Ardys and her husband Caroll, West Des Moines, IA; five grandchildren and their spouses, Scott and Cristina Garberding, Katherine and Ron Kerr, Michael and Jenny Garberding, Kristina Anderson and Firoz Khan, and Reed and Melissa Anderson; and eleven great grandchildren, Daniel, Tomas, Andrea, and Anamaria Garberding, Spencer and Elizabeth Kerr, Kyle, Emily, and Kate Garberding, and Hailey and Paige Anderson.