Colleen Ostrem, 92, Luverne, died Monday, Oct. 19, 2020, at Our House Hospice Home in Slayton.
A memorial service will be at a later date. Interment will be in the Rosehill Cemetery in Rockwell City, Iowa. Memorials may be directed to Murray County Hospice.
Colleen Gabriel was born on March 2, 1928, to Eldon and Mary Holt Gabriel in Rockwell City, Iowa. She grew up in Rockwell City and graduated from Rockwell City High School. She attended Iowa State Teacher’s College and then taught country school.
On Dec. 31, 1946, she married Deane Onnen in South Sioux City, Nebraska. They lived in Cherokee, Iowa, for most of their married life. Colleen earned a Master of Arts in social work from Iowa State University. She wrote a weekly parenting column for many years called “Practical Parenting.” She later worked at the Children’s Unit of the Cherokee Mental Health Institute and also taught at Buena Vista College. She later served as a hospice social worker. Following retirement she and Deane moved to Mesa, Arizona. Deane died in 2010.
Colleen married Tait Ostrem and they lived in Mesa, later moving to Tucson, Arizona. Tait died in late 2018.
Colleen was a lifelong learner. She enjoyed formal and informal learning, including traveling the globe with Tait. She read the paper daily and kept up on the stock market. She was a seamstress as well as a quilter. She enjoyed writing letters and working on genealogy, tracing her family roots back to the 1700s. She loved playing bridge and pinochle.
In February 2019 Colleen moved to Poplar Creek Assisted Living in Luverne to be near her daughter, Laurie. In May 2020 she moved to Our House Hospice Home in Slayton.
Survivors include her daughter, Laurie (Curt) Jensen of Slayton; daughter-in-law Susie Onnen of Nixa, Missouri; eight grandchildren and their spouses, Mitzi and Scott Wehner, Jamey and Wendy Onnen, Jeremy and Andrea Onnen, Becky Onnen, Kelly Schnoebelen, Corie and Renato Frassen, Peter Jensen and Samira Rockler, and Sarah and Logan Anderson; 15 great-grandchildren; Tait’s four children and their spouses, Mary Jondrow and Jim Ostrem, Jenny and Richard Lock, Tim and Dawn Ostrem, and Fred Ostrem and Kim Freeman; three siblings and spouses, Marge and Floyd Bihrer of Sac City, Iowa, Donna and Hugh Robinson of Naples, Florida, and Carl Gabriel of Potosi, Missouri.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husbands, Deane Onnen and Tait Ostrem; a son, Tracy Onnen; daughter and son-in-law Claudia and Richard Ryner; grandson-in-law Jay Schnoebelen; and sister Opal Gabriel.
Arrangements were provided by Totzke Funeral Home of Slayton, totzkefuneralhome.com.
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