- Date Of Birth: September 3, 1924
- Date Of Death: January 8, 2021
- State: Iowa
She was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota to her farming parents of Alvin and Ruth Kallem and moved with them to Ellsworth, Iowa soon after. She lost her father at age 8 to cancer, but grew up supported by her strong mother and extended Norwegian family. After graduation from high school, she worked in a munitions factory in Ankeny, Iowa during World War II before going to school to gain her teacher’s certificate from the University of Northern Iowa. She took her first job in Manson, Iowa teaching second grade where she soon met and married her husband, Delbert Mueller, who farmed in the area. After losing him to cancer in 1985, she moved from the farm to town.
A hard-working farm wife and a mother of seven children, she still found the time and desire to be an active member of St.
Always up for an adventure and traveling, she never stopped learning or encouraging others to do the same. She had a treasured quote from Tagore that says: “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is turning down the lamp because the dawn has come.” She now resides in that new dawn.
She is survived by her sister, Rosalie Arneson, children, Paula Krueger (Keith), Marcia Wakeland (Steve), Karen Zaabel (Denny), Douglas Mueller, David Mueller and Jon Mueller, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Delbert, her sisters, Polly Martin and Maxine Sterrett, her brothers, Darrell Kallem, Wesley Kallem, her close double-cousins, LouAnn Clark(Wendell) and Merlyn Kallem (Doris), daughter, Jayne Anderson and great grandchild, Evie Mueller.
