Beth O’Donohoe

Beth O’Donohoe age 95 of New Hampton, IA, died Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, at her home.

Services will be held this summer when the family can travel to New Hampton. Interment will be in the New Hampton City Cemetery. Hugeback Johnson Funeral Home and Crematory is entrusted with arrangements. Online conodlences may be left for the O’Donohoe family at hugebackfuneralhome.com

Marietta Beth (Larson) O’Donohoe was born in Charles City, Iowa on March 11, 1925. Her parents were Erwin Larson and Grace (Gillette) Larson. Both parents were graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1923. Beth had a very happy childhood. While many children suffered severe hardships in the Great Depression, she found it a pleasant time to grow up because the adults around her had much more time to give to children’s activities. She greatly loved Girl Scouts and was a member of Troop 2 in Charles City for six years. A kind person gave the Girl Scouts the use of Squirrels’ Inn, two large cabins in a beautiful location north of Charles City. The Scouts enjoyed it at least one day a week all summer. Beth also belonged to the United Methodist Church.

In her childhood, Beth attended three Democratic National Conventions which nominated Franklin Roosevelt (1932, 1936, and 1940). At the first convention she attended, her mother pointed out then-Governor Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt, and their two sons, who were helping to support their father because he suffered from a form of paralysis thought then to be poliomyelitis. Beth’s mother said, “Remember this moment; this is history.”

In 1942 she was graduated from Charles City High School. Hers was the first war class of World War II. Graduation and moving into the adult world of the war felt momentous and like the start of a great adventure. That summer, Beth had her first job at Salisbury Laboratories, an agricultural pharmaceutical company, putting pills in bottles. In the fall, she went to Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Her father had rejoined the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel; both parents visited Beth at Stephens. Beth strongly missed them; at the end of her freshman year she transferred to Mills College in Oakland in the Bay Area where her father was serving as Post Executive at Fort McDowell on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.

Beth greatly enjoyed her time at Mills. She lived on campus on weekdays and on weekends with her parents, first in the Marina district of San Francisco and later on Angel Island in officers’ quarters. Her major was English Literature. The local hospitals of Kaiser and Permanente had requested that the students at Mills cut and fold custom surgical dressings and sponges from bolts of cloth. This would free up a Red Cross chapter to go overseas. The women voted unanimously to each donate an hour a week to this activity and did so throughout the war. Beth was in charge of this project. She received her degree in 1946.

San Francisco provided many rich cultural opportunities. Beth went to movies, concerts, plays, and (for a music class) opera. She experienced a minor earthquake during one of the operas. In addition to classes, in 1944 she met a young 2 nd Lieutenant named James O’Donohoe. From the first, they shared a mutual love of literature and a passion for books that continued their entire married life. The two married in Charles City in September of 1946. Her husband had already completed a semester of law school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While he was at law school, Beth taught freshman English at the University. They got their first dog, and their first tiny house quite near the football stadium. Every Saturday night they had company over and served a ham that cooked during the football game. They attended nearly every game together except for one, when her father visited and took her ticket.

In 1949, James graduated from the bar with a Juris Doctor degree, which at that time was a mark of distinction. He began a law practice in New Hampton, Iowa, eighteen miles from Charles City. The couple lived with Beth’s parents for seven months before moving to their own house in New Hampton where Beth lived until she died. In the next few years, she gave birth to their two sons: Christopher (Kit) in 1950 and Nicholas (Nick) in 1952. As they grew up, Beth became active in scouting, first as Den Mother for a Cub Scout Den that met in her basement, and later working with the Boy Scouts until the end of the Sixties.

Busy as this time was, the family found time to attend touring Broadway musicals at the KRNT Theater in Des Moines and plays at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. After the boys went to college and beyond, Beth and her husband traveled extensively. Beth served for six years on the hospital board of St. Joseph Community Hospital (now MercyOne New Hampton Medical Center). Throughout her married life, Beth was an active member of Chapter DL of P.E.O., an organization that is committed to financing education for women. She was president for two years. She was active in the American Red Cross as a swimming representative in the late 1960s. She also corrected themes for New Hampton High School for two years. Later, she used her teaching skills as part of a volunteer program to teach English to Southeast Asian immigrants.

She is survived by her sons: Kit and his wife Judy O’Donohoe; Nick and his wife Lynn Anne Evans; her grand-daughters: Jenny O’Donohoe, her husband Eyal Shafran and children Ethan and Ella Jane; Emily O’Donohoe, her husband Russell Bainer and their children Lilly and Arthur; Masha Kroshinskaya, her husband, Leo Simmons, and their sons Niko and Milo.

For the last six years, her life was brightened by the care and companionship of Dorann Burgart.