Lena M. Hogan

Lena M. Hogan, 94, of Fairfield, died Friday, July 25, 2014 at Mercy Hospice in Iowa City.

A register will be available for signing beginning at 8:00 AM on Tuesday at Behner Funeral Home. Visitation with the family will be on Wednesday, July 30 from 9:30 to 11:00 AM prior to the celebration of life service at 11:00 A.M. at the First United Methodist Church in Fairfield.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Fairfield United Methodist Church Higher Education Scholarship Fund at 201 North Court, Fairfield, Iowa 52556. Online condolences may be directed to www.behnerfh.com.

The daughter of Frank and Lena Anna (Lee) Pierson, Lena Marjorie Hogan was born at home on February 4, 1920 in Kossuth, a tiny community outside of Mediapolis. She grew up during the Great Depression and was a 1937 graduate of Huron High School located near Oakville. She married Fritz Hogan on Valentine’s Day, 1940 in Burlington. After farming for several years in the Iowa City area and near Sigourney, they worked at Huron Community School and then settled on a farm in Jefferson County in 1954.

Mrs. Hogan was a homemaker who worked in Fairfield first as switchboard operator-clerk at Louden Manufacturing Co. She became a proofreader at the Fairfield Ledger at a time when the paper was published six days a week. During her tenure there, she was self-taught in mastering the perforator, the precursor of computers, used in processing news articles and advertising copy. She retired in 1983 after 31 years with the newspaper.

An avid traveler in retirement throughout the U.S. and into Canada and Mexico, she and her husband spent winters at Sun Life Park in Mesa, Arizona. After her husband died in 1996 after 56 years of marriage, she continued to return there annually. In Mesa she volunteered at Velda Rose United Methodist Church working on sewing projects for needy people; she was a volunteer and member of the First United Methodist Church in Fairfield.

An energetic woman, she created quilts for all of her children and each of her grandchildren, walked long distances in the countryside, shared the bounty of her gardens, experimented with new recipes to serve others, played countless games of euchre and pinochle with friends, read up to three newspapers a day, and delighted in public television programming especially centered on British comedies, history, and travelogues. Her greatest of all joys was her loving family.

She is survived by her daughter Dixie Lee Hoekman and her husband Will of Des Moines and her son Dean W. Hogan and his wife Denise of Ft. Madison; five grandchildren: Scott Hoekman, Katherine Hoekman, Traci Hogan Kinnick and her husband Tyson, Brian Hogan and his wife Jessica, and Brent Hogan; and four great grandchildren: Nile Kinnick, Kenzie Hogan, Paul Hogan, and Samantha Kinnick. She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, one sister, and four brothers.