Effie Lienau

Effie J. Lienau, age 93 of Fredericksburg, IA, died Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at the Whispering Willows Assisted Living in Fredericksburg. Funeral Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 5, 2022, at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg with Rev. Ronnie Koch officiating. Interment will be held at Rose Hill Cemetery, Fredericksburg with David Farrell, Matthew Farrell, Seth Meyer, Caleb Meyer, Nile Lienau, Noah Lienau, Isaiah Lienau, Ian Lienau, Tanner Hageman, and Hunter Lienau serving as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers are the Fredericksburg AM VET Auxiliary. Friends may greet the family from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday October 4, 2022, at Hugeback - Johnson Funeral Home & Crematory in Fredericksburg. Visitation continues an hour prior to the service at the church on Wednesday. Effie was born on May 8, 1929, to George and Gertrude (Schmidt) Moorman in the small northeastern Kansas town of Washington. As a young girl, her family moved to the village of Steele City in southern Nebraska, where she attended school and graduated with the Steele City High School Class of 1947. After graduation, she attended a business school in Omaha, Nebraska, where the sister of Raymond Lienau was also a student. They became fast friends and after finishing their schooling, they worked together at Rath Packing in Waterloo, where Effie was a switchboard operator. One day, she joined Raymond's sister on a trip home, and the rest is history as a spark was lit between Effie and Ray. They began dating, fell in love and were married on February 9, 1952, at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo. Ray was serving in the U.S. Army, and after the wedding, he was sent to Korea while Effie remained at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he completed his tour after being wounded during the Korean War. The couple then moved to the Lienau family farm northeast of Fredericksburg, where they welcomed and raised their five children — Suzan, Nancy, Ronald, Sandra and Robert — who will always remember Mom's huge garden. They spent hours in that plot, weeding and tending to plants, and more hours canning and freezing the vegetables. Effie and Ray loved to play cards with their "neighborhood group," which gathered at least once a month to play 500 and Euchre and catch up with each other. In 1972, Effie took a job at Sara Lee in New Hampton, where she worked on the cake line and in the sanitation department for 25 years until she retired. Her kids also remember that Mom one year won the prize for selling the most subscriptions for the New Hampton Tribune, but then again, she was so social that it was hard to say no to Effie. When her husband passed away in 1997, she persevered and remained on the farm for almost another decade before moving into Fredericksburg. Effie was a social butterfly, and ask anyone in Fredericksburg and they'll remember that Effie and her friends were always together. If you saw one, the other three or four weren't far behind! She adored her 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, both the ones who were near and those who were far away. Effie made a couple of trips to Germany to visit Suzan's family when her oldest daughter was stationed overseas during her Army career. Effie was an active member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg and the AMVETS Auxillary. The world changed a lot during Effie's 93-year journey here, but there's little doubt that she made it a better place and will be dearly missed by those who loved her. Effie is survived by two sons, Ronald (Sue) Lienau of Ossian, and Robert Lienau of Rochester, Minnesota; three daughters, Suzan (Thomas) Farrell of Hawkeye, Nancy (Stewart) Meyer of Indianola, and Sandy Hageman of Calmar; 15 grandchildren; eleven great-grandchildren with one on the way; and a sister, Eva Renz of Beatrice, Nebraska. She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Raymond in 1997; one son-in-law, Rod Hageman; and one brother-in-law, Darrell Renz; three brothers and three sisters.