Irene L. Pallesen, 90

Former Blair resident Irene L. Pallesen, 90, died Saturday, Aug. 17, 2002, at a hospital near her home in Lake Worth, Fla.

Graveside services will be Tuesday, Aug. 20, in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Irene Louise Pallesen was born May 15, 1912, in Owatonna, Minn., where she graduated from high school in 1928, and taught in rural schools for five years.

She received a bachelor’s degree in 1938 from Mankato State University and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1941.

She became elementary supervisor for the public schools in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and, in 1946, married George Pallesen, a minister for what was then the Danish Lutheran Church in northern Iowa.

Mrs. Pallesen was stricken with polio in 1950, while she and her husband were serving in Ringsted, Iowa. Upon her return home from the hospital, she became an inspirational speaker for the March of Dimes. In 1957, she was chosen by the governor to be Iowa’s Polio Mother of the Year.

She moved with her family to Blair in 1959, and from her wheelchair, she taught an adult Bible class at First Lutheran Church. She was also a founding member of the Good Shepherd Home Auxiliary and, despite her handicap, often entertained in the parsonage. Because of the snow, the Pallesens left Blair in 1969 to serve congregations in Bridge City and Kingsville, Texas.

The couple retired to Florida in 1979. Rev. Pallesen preceded his wife in death in January 2001.

She is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Gayle Pallesen of West Palm Beach, one grandson, and three nieces in Minnesota.

Memorials are suggested to the March of Dimes or Good Shepherd Home in Blair.