SIOUX CITY -- Anna Mathilda Dora Wilkinson, 84, of Sioux City passed into the next life Saturday, April 4, 2009.
Services celebrating her life will be 10 a.m. Saturday at Redeemer Lutheran Church. Following the service, she will join her husband, Howard who passed in 2003, in Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. today, with a prayer service at 6 p.m., at Morningside Chapel, Christy-Smith Funeral Home.
Anna or Annie, as her husband often called her, was born May 22, 1924, in Akron, Iowa, to Frederick and Elise Meins. She was the second to the youngest in a family of 10 siblings.
On Sept. 19, 1945, she married Howard Wilkinson, the love of her life. The couple set up house, where they raised three wonderful daughters and spent 58 years together.
Her parents were hard working German immigrants who passed that work ethic on to her. She never waited or asked what to do. She saw what needed to be done and did it. Her years of service at Aalfs Manufacturing as well as being a loving wife, mother and grandmother are a testament to her will and determination.
Her devotion to her church is well known. Her legacy hangs on the walls of Redeemer Lutheran Church in the beautiful crocheted handwork she created. She was also quite the social butterfly. She will be missed by her morning coffee club as well as the P.O.W. survivors and widows group she and Howard belonged to.
She lives on in her three beloved daughters and their husbands, Jackie and Virgil Goodvin of Sloan, Iowa, Bevelyn and Ray Bender of Phoenix, Ariz., and Terry and Scott Nugent of Castle Rock, Colo.; nine grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; two older sisters; and numerous nieces and nephews.
She will be joining her husband, Howard Wilkinson; her parents; her siblings; and a great-grandchild in heaven.
Everyone who knew her will miss her wit, determination, calm wisdom and her unconditional love.