A Mass of Christian Burial for Irma Reiser, age 90, of Milford, was held Tuesday, October 3, 2023, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Milford. Inurnment was in Calvary Cemetery in Milford.
Irma Mae Reiser died Thursday, September 28, 2023, at Keelson Harbour Assisted Living, in Spirit Lake, with family at her side.
Irma Dust, the daughter of Clem and Marie Dust, was born Feb. 24, 1933, in Milford. A blended family, her siblings included Dusty, Myron, Toni, Corlyne, Margaret and Cecil. She attended St. Joseph’s Catholic School and graduated from Siena High School, in Chicago, IL.
On July 1, 1952, Irma married Art Reiser at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Milford. To this union, two children were born.
Always a hard worker, Irma was employed at Fishing Tackle, also known as Berkley’s, in Spirit Lake. She left Berkley’s when Eaton’s opened in Spencer. She was proud of her low man number of 29 at Eaton’s. After retiring from Eaton’s, Irma became the housekeeper at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in January of 1997, a position she held until October of 2018 when she moved to Keelson Harbour, in Spirit Lake. During that time, Irma also cleaned the Vianney House, located near Crescent Beach, for the Diocese of Sioux City.
In her spare time, Irma enjoyed snowmobiling, even driving her own snowmobile in the Black Hills with family and friends on many trips. She was a devout Catholic and her faith was very important. Irma was active in the St. Joseph Rosary/Altar Society and assisted at many church and funeral dinners through the years.
Cooking was her passion. She loved having the family over every Sunday evening for homemade chicken and noodles, beef and noodles or another tasty dish. She delighted in preparing and serving a delicious prime rib supper for her family and numerous priests through the years on Christmas Eve for over 20 years. She always had yummy cookies in the jar and loved when family and friends would stop by for coffee and a chat. Her banana cream pie was the best. If you wanted to know where Art and Irma were on Friday and Saturday nights, it was easy to find them at their favorite steak house. We are confident that they picked up where they had left off once Irma arrived in heaven Thursday night.
Irma was very particular about how her hair looked at all times and was often complimented on her hairdo. She never left the house with a hair out of place and had her hair styled weekly at the local salon.
Survivors include her son, Dean, and his wife, Susan, of Milford; daughter, Mona Barringer of Danbury, IA; three grandchildren and two great grandchildren: Joey Reiser and his wife, Kayla, and their children Maizy and Stetson, and Madison and Micah Barringer, both of Ocheyedan, IA; one brother, Cecil Dust, of St. Louis, MO, and many friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Art in January of 2017 and siblings: Myron Wegman, Orville “Dusty” Wegman, Corlyne Chappell, Margaret Turussi and Toni Holzrichter.
Turner Jenness Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
