VIOLET M. WEST

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Violet M. West, 89, of Fort Dodge, passed away on Saturday, October 31, 2009 at the Tompkins Memorial Health Center in Fort Dodge. Funeral services will be 10:30 AM Wednesday at the Gunderson Funeral Chapel in Fort Dodge. Burial will be in the Blossom Hill Cemetery, rural Badger. Visitation will be from 4 to 7 P.M. Tuesday at the Gunderson Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Fort Dodge.

Violet M. Oldfield was born April 29, 1920 to Alice and Thornton Oldfield in Molbridge, South Dakota. At the age of four she was placed in an orphanage in Fargo, North Dakota. At the age of 5 she was adopted by Chester and Hanna Knutson and lived near the Roosevelt State Park in North Dakota. In 1934, their family moved to Badger, Iowa where she attended Fort Dodge Schools. At the age of 18 she met and married Art West. They made their home and raised their children in Lehigh, Iowa. They had four children Ardeth Kenne of Humboldt, Edward West of Peosta, Iowa, Margaret West of Fort Dodge and Mary Halgrim of Deming, New Mexico. They also raised a foster child, Johnny Slawson. In 1959, Violet and Art moved to Badger to help care for her father until his death. They then moved to Humboldt, Iowa. Her husband died in 1993 after 56 years of marriage. Due to her frail heath she lived at the Northridge Apartments in Fort Dodge and later moved to the Tompkins Memorial Health Center. Violet was a homemaker but did work as a nurse's aide at Friendship Haven for several years starting in 1966. Her life centered around her four children and her husband and her passion later in life was for her doll collection.

She is survived by her four children, five grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren, and three great great grandchildren. Violet is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, two brothers and two grandchildren.