Elda Viola Griensewic

Elda V. Griensewic age 94 of Balaton, MN died Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at the Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls, SD. Services will be 10:30 AM Saturday, August 25, 2012 at the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Balaton. Visitation will be from 5:00 until 7:00 PM Friday, August 24, 2012 at the Almlie Funeral Home in Balaton, with a prayer service at 6:30 PM and continuing one hour prior to the service at the church on Saturday. Interment will be in the St. Peter’s Lutheran Cemetery in Balaton, with a luncheon served in the church social hall immediately following the burial. The Almlie Funeral Home of Balaton is handling the arrangements. Elda Viola (Geske) Griensewic was born on February 22, 1918, in Springfield, MN, to Emil and Maria (Wiencke) Geske. She was baptized on March 12, 1918, and confirmed in 1932 at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Marshall, MN. Elda attended rural schools near Amiret, MN and graduated from Marshall High School in 1936. As a young woman, before she was married, Elda worked at Swift’s in Marshall. On Oct. 16, 1941, Elda married Charles Griensewic in Sioux City, IA. Eight children were born to this union. They made their home in Salt Lake City, UT for a short time and moved back to Minnesota in 1944, and then into Balaton, MN that same year. Elda worked at the DAC in Marshall and the Robert E. Milton home in Redwood Falls, MN for several years before becoming a full time housewife and mother. She was a long-time member of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and enjoyed gardening, reading, cooking, and quilt making. She became a resident of the Minnesota Veterans’ Home in Luverne, MN in 2009 and recently entered Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls, SD, where she died Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at the age of 94. Elda is survived by two sons: Charles of Balaton and Max (Virjean) of Mankato, MN; four daughters, Mary Chesley of Beaver Creek, MN, Lenore (Howard) Cadwell of Amesbury, MA, Louise (Dale) Schurle of Eden Prairie, MN, and Jane (Ken) Sovell of Marshall, MN; son-in-law, Garvin Murray of Fort Collins, CO; nineteen grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; nieces, nephews and friends. Her parents, her husband, Charles, one son, Byron, one daughter, Vera Murray, and one son-in-law, Leroy Chesley, two brothers and four sisters preceded her in death.