Maxine Klein, age 98, of Winner, SD passed away on Saturday Oct. 5, 2019 at the Winner Regional Long-Term Care Center in Winner.
Funeral services were held on Monday Oct. 14, 2019 at 10:30 a.m. at the Church of Nazarene in Winner. Burial followed in the Winner City Cemetery.
Visitation was held on Sunday Oct.13, 2019 from 5-7 p.m. at the Mason Funeral Home in Winner.
Maxine Marvel (Mann) Klein was born on a rainy April 5, 1921 to George and Myrtle (Patterson) Mann. She joined three older sisters. She was delivered by Dr. James Quinn in a farmhouse nine miles north of Colome.
At the age of five, she moved with her family to a farm south and west of Millboro. Here, she spent her childhood days. She attended Shadley Valley Grade School for her elementary years. For ninth grade, Maxine went to another country school called Beaver Creek. When that school didn’t have high school any more, she finished high school at Millboro High School. Here, school was held in the community church. Maxine graduated there in 1940 with a class of eight students.
Deciding to become a teacher, she went to college at Southern State Normal School at Springfield, South Dakota. She attended for one year and earned a teaching certificate. For the next three years, she taught in rural schools around Winner.
Maxine met the love of her life, Conrad, while boarding at his sister’s. After a four year courtship, they were married. The young couple lived with his mother for a few years and farmed until Conrad’s mother died and the homestead was sold. They continued to farm around Burke for a few more years. They moved to Tripp County in 1951. By this time, they were blessed with three children, David, Joan, and Dale. For the next fifteen years, they farmed around Winner. Their family had grown to six. Janice, Debby, and Susan had joined the Klein crew.
They moved into Winner, and Maxine went back to teaching. She taught in Tripp County for the next 21 years. In 1976 Maxine earned her bachelor of science degree from Vermillion and taught 10 more years.
After retiring from teaching, Maxine started making patchwork quilts. Her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren all have one or more of the quilts she made. She also started doing some volunteer work at her church and at the nursing home.
Maxine touched the lives of many youngsters during her teaching years. She loved teaching. She especially loved getting the programs ready for the students to perform for their parents. During her retired life, it gave her great pleasure to meet up with her students and to stop and visit with them to find out how they were doing and just remember the good days in the classroom.
Tragedy struck the family in 1979 when Conrad suffered a crippling stroke which left him completely helpless. For the next six years, he was confined to a nursing home. Maxine spent many hours visiting him while he was there.
Susan and her four children came home to live with Maxine after Conrad’s stroke. They lived with her for the next six years. Grandma Maxine watched over Susan’s brood while Sue went to college and got her bachelor’s degree in teaching, following in her mom’s footsteps. The family lost Susan in 1988. She had ovarian cancer and died from a blood clot while in St. Luke’s Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota.
Maxine loved life and enjoyed volunteering and playing cards and drinking coffee with friends, but family was always first. She really enjoyed organizing family reunions and gathering her group together every year or so. It was a passion with her. She also loved her Lord and prayed for her family every day and sometimes several times a day.
Maxine said, “I have had a great life. I had a loving husband and six great kids. What more could I have asked for? I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime. I lived when cars were a rarity and telephones were just a luxury. I was born out in the country where Dr. Quinn made house calls to deliver babies. I walked a mile and a half to school with my siblings. We walked during the Dirty Thirties when we all took a hold of hands and followed the fence line so we wouldn’t get lost because you really couldn’t see your hand in front of you because of the dust. The wind was blowing so hard you couldn’t stand up. I lived through the Great Depression and two wars. Yes, I have had a good life.”
Leaving this old world before her were her parents, her husband Conrad, her daughter Susie, great granddaughter Ama, sisters Isabel, Lela, Percy, Dorothy, Twila, and brother Bud.
Maxine is survived by her children–David (Linda) Klein of Pierre, SD; Jo (Jack) Dooley of Oacoma, SD; Dale (Penny) Klein of Arizona City, AZ; Jan Klein of Zumbrota, MN; Debby (Rick) Bice of Ideal, SD–15 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, 5 great-great-grandchildren, her sister Dolores Soles of Winner, SD, and many nieces and nephews.
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