LaDona Roelfs, 78

LaDona Roelfs, 78, of Ackley, passed away on Saturday, September 30, 2023 at MercyOne North Iowa Medical Center in Mason City. Visitation will be from 4-7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Sietsema Funeral Home in Ackley. A private family service will be held  at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Ackley with burial in the Grant Township Cemetery. Funeral arrangements are under the guidance of the Sietsema Funeral Home in Ackley. 

“I have always told my kids to make a memory, do something different, something exciting, something to remember… to make a memory.”

LaDona spent her life doing just that…making memories.

LaDona Rae Stackhouse, was born December 10, 1944 to John Owen (OJ) Stackhouse and Maxine Hattie Bullard of Geneva, Iowa.

Wearing a dress made by her mother, LaDona wed Keith Benjamin Roelfs at the Geneva Methodist Church on February 28, 1964. The young couple called Minneapolis their home until moving to rural Ackley, Iowa to begin farming.

Between 1964 and 1972, they welcomed a son and two daughters into their world. In 1966 Our Saviours Lutheran Church in Ackley became their church home.

LaDona held multiple jobs throughout her life - including farmwife, cashier, waitress, and church secretary. But her time at the Iowa Falls Times-Citizen and later Editor at the Ackley World Journal gave her the most joy. On October 22, 1992, LaDona published her first ‘Just a Thought’ column, publishing weekly until she retired in 2010.

Her desire to make memories led her to many places…Hawaii, Arizona, Alaska, New York, Vermont, Colorado and Utah, as well as Texas and New Mexico.

LaDona was well known throughout the Ackley and Iowa Falls area due to her many years interviewing local ‘celebrities’. She thoroughly enjoyed any opportunity to meet new people and tell their story. LaDona also enjoyed taking photos of her subjects and her family. Along with wedding quilts for each grandchild and baby quilts for each great-grandchild, creating handmade wall hangings, table runners and holiday gifts were a love and passion.

She encountered numerous health challenges throughout her adult life, facing them with grace, faith, and fearless optimism.

She is survived by her loving husband, Keith Benjamin Roelfs, her sisters Patty Rodemeyer, Jackie (Keith) Campbell and Shirley Strong. Her children Todd (Kim) Roelfs, Jill (Kevin) Toben and Alison (Patrick) DePenning.

Her beloved grandchildren, Ashley (Bryan) Crosser, Jacob (Shelby) Roelfs, Kelsey Roelfs, Zach (Brittany) Toben, Laura (Dillin) Hofmeister, Garrett Boelman, Joseph DePenning, Sydney Boelman and Emma DePenning.

The next generation has begun with eight great-grandchildren that will know her through pictures, stories of adventures, and the occasional misadventure! Each child will forever know her love as they snuggle under one of her handmade quilts.