Funeral services for 92-year-old Adeline Friesen of Freeman, South Dakota, formerly of Mountain Lake, Minnesota, were held Monday morning, April 18, 2016, at the Hutterthal Mennonite Church in rural Freeman.
Burial was Tuesday afternoon, April 19, 2016, in Mountain Lake City Cemetery.
Adeline Friesen passed away on Thursday, April 14, 2016, at the Freeman Hospital.
Walter Funeral Home in Freeman handled the funeral arrangements.
Adeline Helen (Quiring) Friesen was born during a blizzard on March 29, 1924 on a farm two miles north of Mountain Lake, the daughter of Abraham P. and Katharina Hilda (Gertzen) Quiring. Adeline lived on this farm with her parents until March 1927, when her father bought a farm southwest of Mountain Lake, and the family moved there.
Growing up on the farm, Adeline drove tractor for her dad and helped her mom with the chickens and the garden. Adeline attended a country school for eight years just a quarter mile south of their farm. She attended high school in Mountain Lake, graduating in 1942. At her father’s urging, Adeline went to Bethel College in Newton, Kansas, and graduated after four years with a business/economics degree. Following graduation, she taught typing, shorthand and bookkeeping at Lamberton, Minnesota for two years.
Adeline also began to play organ at the First Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake, where Adeline and her family attended. She continued to serve as church organist for many years. During a Sunday evening service, she met Cornelius J. Friesen. She and Cornelius, known as “Cornie,” began to date shortly before she began her year of teaching in 1948 at Freeman Junior College and Academy in Freeman. Adeline and Cornie became engaged on her birthday in March. On October 14, 1949, Cornie and Adeline were married at First Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake. They were married for 48 years.
Adeline and Cornie bought her parents’ home farm where they raised dairy cattle, sheep, chickens, hogs and a variety of crops. They lived on the farm until 1983, at which point their son, Jerry, took over the farm, and Adeline and Cornie retired and moved to a house in Mountain Lake.
In July of 1998, Cornie passed away. Then, in 2004, Adeline moved to Freeman to be near her daughters, Marj and Carolyn and their families. Since moving to Freeman, Adeline has been an active member of the community. She enjoyed Schmeckfest, where she served on the Country Kitchen Committee, demonstrating noodle-making and baking her zwiebach.
Adeline was a talented and avid quilter, baker and family historian. Over the years, Adeline made hundreds of relief quilts. She was on the prayer shawl committee at church and enjoyed crocheting prayer shawls. Three days before her death, she insisted on going to a prayer shawl meeting. Adeline had researched all her family history and published five different family history and genealogy books.
Survivors include her children M,arjorie (Donald) Hofer, Freeman, Carolyn (Loren) Waltner, Freeman and Jerald (Sarah) Friesen of Mountain Lake; grandchildren Nicolle (Larry) Timmerman, Bridgewater, South Dakota, Chad (Rebecca) Hofer, Bridgewater, Brandy (Sergio) Lima, Marion, South Dakota, Amy Friesen, Hopkins, Minnesota and Drew Waltner and fiancé Elizabeth Schnabel, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; great-grandchildren Savanna, Guss, and Rylea Timmerman; Alyssa and Brynlee Hofer; Kaliyah, Alecksi and AnnaBella Lima; sister. Geneva (Waldo) Stoesz, Mountain Lake; sister-in-law, Mary Lou Knickrehm, St. James, Minnesota and many nieces and nephews.
Adeline was preceded in death by husband, Cornelius Friesen; brother, Sam Quiring; sister, Frieda Toews and infant grandson, Dalton J. Waltner.