Individual Details

Death

Ruth Wahl, age 92, died Friday, May 20, 2016, at Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids following a brief illness. 

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 am Tuesday, May 31, 2016, at St. John's Lutheran Church rural Monticello with interment in the Oakwood Cemetery. Rev. Reed Stockman will officiate the services. Friends may call from 4 until 7 pm, Monday, May 30, 2016, at the Goettsch Funeral Home in Monticello. 

Ruth W. Wahl was born November 8, 1923, at home on the Delaware-Jones County line to William and Margaret Hanken Reuter. She was baptized and confirmed at St. John’s Lutheran Church. She attended Lovell Township School #9 and graduated from the Monticello High School in 1940. Ruth attended Lenox College in Hopkinton, Iowa. After her graduation she taught in the elementary grades in the Epworth Public Schools.

On June 15, 1944, Ruth married Robert Wahl at St. John’s Lutheran Church. 

They moved to Akron, Ohio, where she did substitute teaching in the Akron Public Schools. The couple returned to Iowa and farmed north of Monticello.

Ruth’s passions were youth, education and missions as evidenced with her work as a leader of a 4-H Club and her teaching activities at St. John’s education system. Her most satisfying accomplishment was to help establish the St. John’s Christian Day Care. Missions were very important to her also as she held many offices in Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (LWML) on the local, zone and district levels. She always looked to the Lord for guidance as she worked.

She is survived by her husband, Robert Wahl, and sons and daughters: Janet Wahl, Dick (Terri) Wahl, Marilyn (Raymond) Peak, Annette Donald (Chris Hare), Eric (Janine) Wahl, Charlotte (Tom) Strub. Also surviving Ruth are 8 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren and her sister-in-law, Evelyn Reuter. 

Ruth was preceded in death by her parents, infant daughter, Karen, and her brother Roy.

Obituary & photo published by Goettsch Funeral Home in Monticello.