- Date Of Birth: January 20, 1931
- Date Of Death: April 1, 2020
- State: Idaho
Iris Eileen Thompson, 89, of Idaho Falls, passed away April 1, 2020, at The Gables Assisted Living Center of Idaho Falls. She was under the care of Solace Hospice.
Iris was born January 20, 1931, in Fort Lupton, Colorado, to Paul Albert Junge and Froeda Aurora Kissenger Junge. She grew up and attended schools in Fort Lupton and graduated from Fort Lupton High School. After her retirement, she attended Ames college and took classes in writing and family history.
On August 16, 1950, she married Ralph Emery Conley in Fort Lupton, Colorado. Together they had two sons, Monty and Mark. They later divorced. She then married Donald Lee Thompson on April 23, 1970, in Boulder, Colorado. He passed away in 2012. When her son Mark passed away in 2015, Iris went on to make her home in Idaho Falls, Idaho, to be close to her son Monty and his family.
She was a Christian and relied on her faith to give her strength. She was always up for an adventure and traveled widely gaining new experiences. She loved to fish and camp. She wrote extensively creating a family history, poems, and short stories. She was published in local magazines such as the Fence Post. She built a grand doll house that followed her to Idaho, and she created dolls and doll clothes to go along with it. She was an accomplished artist and ardently pursued experiments in new medias to capture her emerging ideas.
In her working career she worked for Safeway for a number of years before retiring to start a ceramics business. Thompson Clay and Brush was a bustling affair with classes in all aspects of ceramics, pottery, and china.
Iris is survived by her loving son, Monty (Betty) Conley of Idaho Falls, ID; 7 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents; husbands; son, Mark Conley; sister, Anita Pfannenstiel; and brothers, Leland Junge and Paul “Bud” Junge.
