Individual Details

Obituary

June 8, 1909 - November 7, 2008
Esther F. Jensen, 99, formerly of West Branch, died Friday, November 7, 2008, at the Oaknoll Retirement Residence where she had lived for more than 22 years. She had deeded her body to The University of Iowa for medical research.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, November 21, at Oaknoll, followed by a Quaker service at 11 a.m. Saturday, November 22, in the Hickory Grove Meeting House at Scattergood School east of West Branch. The Henderson-Barker Funeral Home in West Branch is in charge of arrangements.

Esther Fowler Jones was born on June 8, 1909, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the second of eight children of Jessie Blackburn and Howard Townsend Jones. As a young girl she moved to Iowa when her father became a teacher at Scattergood Friends School two miles east of West Branch, and the family settled on a farm nearby.

A lifelong Quaker, she attended the West Branch public schools, then graduated from Westtown School, a Friends boarding school near Philadelphia where the Jones children were educated. She later graduated from Cedar Rapids Business College and worked for a time in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

It was when she returned to Iowa after Westtown that she met her future husband, a Danish immigrant who had come to work for her father. She and Oswald E. Jensen were married on March 12, 1930, in a Quaker ceremony on the Jones farm. After marriage they farmed together for 42 years until her husband’s death in 1972, all but one of those years on a farm about a mile from where she had grown up. After his death, she continued to live alone on the farm until 1986, when she moved to Oaknoll.

Esther was a member of the Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), a former member of the Scattergood School Committee, and a 50-plus-year member of the Centerdale, Iowa, Woman’s Club.

She is survived by her son Dwight Jensen of Iowa City and his wife Patricia; her daughter Virginia Gritton of Madison, Wisconsin, and her husband Earl; two sisters, Ruth Newlin of Johnston, Iowa, and Elinor Cloe of Davenport; six grandchildren: Kimberly Jensen of Nampa, Idaho, Julia Schwarz of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Dirk Jensen of Shorewood, Wisconsin, Allison Gritton of Madison, Wisconsin, Bruce Gritton of Marengo, Iowa, Scott Gritton of Westfield, Wisconsin; and nine great grandchildren. In addition to her husband, three brothers and two sisters died earlier.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be directed to the Iowa City Hospice or to the charity of the donor’s choice.