Alyce Ann Ellwanger

1927 - 2021

Alyce Ann Ellwanger

Sioux City

Alyce Ann Ellwanger passed away Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021, in Sioux City at age 93.

Visitation will be at Nativity Catholic Church at 10 a.m. on Saturday. A funeral mass will follow at 11 a.m., after which there will be burial at Memorial Park Cemetery. Meyer Brothers Morningside Chapel is handling the arrangements. Online condolences may be made to www.meyerbroschapels.com. The mask and spacing requirements for regular services at Nativity will be utilized.

Alyce Ann Ellwanger was born Jan. 21, 1927 in Welcome, Minn. Alyce was the daughter of Herman and Esther Grimme. She was the youngest of five children, although two other siblings died in childhood.

Alyce's father Herman worked for a road construction company which did business in the area of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, although on occasion they did work at more distant locales, such as South Carolina. Her mother and siblings often moved to the site where Herman was working. Alyce frequently said she attended 16 schools in 12 years. Her father was killed in a work accident during her senior year in high school. She graduated from St. Peter High School, St. Peter, Minn., in the spring of 1945. Her mother and sister moved to Dubuque, Iowa, and lived together with Alyce. She was employed by "AY McDonald". The war in the Pacific was still raging.

In 1946, Cyril Albert "Mike" Ellwanger of Clinton, Iowa, was honorably discharged from the Navy. Mike attended Loras College in Dubuque, and it was there Alyce met him in 1947. They were married in 1948.

After Mike graduated from Loras, the newlyweds moved to Minneapolis. Mike was a freshman law student at the University of Minnesota. Alyce gave birth to their first child in 1950 (Michael). It was at this point that Alyce's days of being paid for her work were over. They moved to Iowa City where Stephanie was born. After Mike graduated from the University of Iowa law school, they moved to Sioux City where Mike was hired as a lawyer for Iowa Public Service Company. In those days, IPS was indeed a family and Alyce was just as involved in that family as Mike. There are many photographs of various events involving Alyce and other IPS employees and their spouses.

After moving to Sioux City in 1952, Alyce gave birth to three more children – Tim in 1955, Melinda in 1958 and Julia in 1965. Julia resides with her husband in Forrest City. The other four children all reside in or around Sioux City.

Alyce and Mike were devout Catholics. Alyce was very proud of the fact that all of her children attended parochial grade school and high school. However, a family of five children barely qualified as a real Catholic family. Until 1983, the family home was a small ranch style house on South Newton Street. The one thing that neighborhood did was produce children, Catholic children. At one point the immediate neighborhood produced 30 children who trudged daily up the hill to Immaculate Conception Grade School. The neighborhood was a classic example of what life was like in the 1950s and 60s. Alyce would remove the children from the family home immediately after breakfast telling them to come home for lunch, dinner and bedtime (actually her responsibilities were a little bit more than that).

Her other interests included bridge, sewing, reading and getting together with friends for coffee. She volunteered for many different organizations. After Mike retired in 2003, Alyce and Mike engaged in a large number of activities together. They were Hospice volunteers for a number of years. They traveled extensively. It was a perfect retirement and they did it together. Mike adored Alyce, often stating, "your mother is a saint." Mike died in 2010. The "pyramid" with Mike and Alyce at the top, presently has 50 people as members. The oldest is Michael at age 70 and the youngest is Tenley Demarest at age eight months.