Phyllis J. Peterson

Phyllis J. (Thelen) Peterson died Friday, December 21, 2012, at age 92, at Trinity Center at Luther Park.

The body has been cremated, and at her request no local services are planned. Private interment of her cremated remains will be later near family and friends in Barnes Township Cemetery, Linn Grove, Iowa.

Phyllis was born on a farm south of Linn Grove, Iowa, on August 20, 1920. She graduated from Linn Grove High School in 1938, having participated in school music activities - glee club, mixed chorus, girl's sextet and trio. She also studied piano and violin and played in the town orchestra. After graduation she studied at Iowa School of Beauty in Des Moines and earned her state license. She worked at the Paris Beauty Salon in the then Uptown Shopping Center at 42nd and University.

Her parents were John M. and Eunice (Davis) Thelen, who have preceded her in death, in addition to her only brother, David, who was killed in military service in St. Lo., France, during World War II.

She was united in marriage for 72 years to Richard D. Peterson, also of Linn Grove, on August 25, 1940. To this union two sons were born, Richard D. Peterson, II, on September 1, 1942, and Dan David Peterson on August 2,1946. Both survive her, along with grandchildren John S. and Andrea L. Peterson and their mother, Francisca, and also Dan's sons, Erich M. and Brett A. Peterson, both of Houston, TX.

Phyllis and Richard's early married life was interrupted by military service in WWII from August 1941 to January 1946. Nearly three of those years was spent training various troop units in posts, camps, and stations in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia. In May of 1944, Richard was ordered overseas to serve in the E.T.O., and Phyllis and her young son returned to Linn Grove to wait until the end of the war.

After the war, they returned to central Iowa and resided in Des Moines and Colfax, and for the past twenty-some years in Johnston. Phyllis was a devoted homemaker, raising two sons, and while in Colfax, served seventeen years on the Public Library Board and as a substitute librarian. She also was on the Board of Jasper County Meals on Wheels. Phyllis became a member of Chapter B.A. Sisterhood in 1963, and thus was approaching 50 years of lifetime membership, and was Chapter Historian.

Phyllis was always an excellent cook, and an accomplished hostess for family, friends, and her husband's business associate dinners. She also found time to can and freeze the bounty from the family garden - a throwback response to the "waste not, want not" days of growing up during the Great Depression!

Phyllis enjoyed bowling, fishing in Minnesota with family, singing in church choirs, and always helped with church social functions as a cook and dining room hostess. After her mother, Eunice, died in 1969, she became sole caregiver to her father, "Grandpa Jack," until his death in 1978.

Memorial contributions to the family will be consolidated and sent to the American Battle Monuments Commission in Paris, to continue purchasing Memorial Day flowers for her brother, 1st Lt. David J. Thelen, who is interred at the Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

Condolences may be expressed at:
www.HamiltonsFuneralHome.com

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