In Loving Memory of Matilda Bernice Hansen, devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grand mother.
Matilda Bernice Hansen, 95 of Gilbert , AZ and formerly of Grand Mound, died Tuesday , March 8, 2011 at Gilbert Hospital in Gilbert, Arizona.
Funeral service's will be 11:00am Friday, March 25,2011, at Lemke Funeral Home South Chapel, 2610 Manufacturing DR., with visitation at 10:00am until service time at the funersl home. Burial will take place in Clinton Lawn Cemetery. A second Memorial Service is being planned in Arizona.
Bernice was born September 16, 1915 in rural Scott County, Iowa to Ernest Charles Hahn and Matilda Oliver Hahn. Bernice is remembered as a hardworking and dedicated teacher. She completed a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Iowa and taught school in the Central Community School District for 32 years. Her tenure as a teacher began at the Allison School in Orange Township. She taught all eight grades and was also the janitor. It was while teaching at the Allison school that she met her husband Victor C. Hansen. He once said that he fell in love with her the first day he saw her walking across the fields in her red hat.
Victor and Bernice were married May 15th 1937 at her parents' home. She continued her teaching career at Grand Mound Elementary School where she taught Kindergarten and 1st grade. She taught three generations of the Green family and more than one generation of several other Grand Mound families. In 1972 she was awarded "Outstanding Elementary Teacher of America".
Bernice and Victor were fulltime residents of Grand Mound and farmed 160 acres until Bernice retired from teaching in June of 1982. After retirement they divided their time between Iowa and a home in Sun City, AZ.
Bernice was a lifetime member of Grand Mound's St. Paul's Methodist Church and a Sunday School Superintendent there for several years. She was an affiliate member of Willowbrook United Methodist Church in Sun City Arizona. She was a lifetime member of the Clinton Co. Historical Society and a member of Pi Lambda Theta a national honor and professional association in education. She loved the prayers of Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the US Senate.
She was preceded in death by her husband Victor C. Hansen and her son-in-law George Voss, her sisters, Mary Hoffman and Alice Stevens, brother in law Richard Stevens, and by her parents. She is survived by her two daughters: Charlene Voss and Janet Pinter, son-in-law Gary Pinter, six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Condolences can be written online at www.lemkefuneral.com.

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