Kathleen De Vries

1926 - 2021

Kathleen De Vries

Orange City, Iowa

Mrs. Kathleen De Vries, 94, of Orange City passed away on Saturday, March 27, 2021, at the Prairie Ridge Care Center in Orange City.

There will be a funeral service at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Immanuel Christian Reformed Church in Orange City. The Rev. Robert Drenten will officiate. Interment will follow the service at the West Lawn Cemetery in Orange City. Visitation with the family will be from 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday at the church. On behalf of the family, we highly encourage the use of masks during the visitation and service. Arrangements are with the Oolman Funeral Home in Orange City.

Kathleen June was born on June 27, 1926, to Nick "Klaus" and Jacoba (Van Oort) Wielenga in Orange City and brought home to a farm between Orange City and Alton. She was the oldest of three children.

Kathleen attended various country schools throughout her childhood. She went to high school at her beloved Newkirk High School, where she made dear and lifelong friends, graduating in 1944. She attended Westmar College in Le Mars for a semester and studied secretarial skills at the National Business Training School in Sioux City, for one year.

After he returned from his service in WWII, Kathleen married George De Vries Jr. on July 20, 1948. They raised five children and Kathleen was an active partner in supporting George's years in education, teaching and writing, including his thirty plus years teaching at Northwestern College in Orange City. George passed away on Dec. 19, 2017, her husband and partner of 69 years.

She was born and raised in the First Reformed Church in Orange City and was a founding and longtime member of the Immanuel Christian Reformed Church family.

Kathleen worked at several businesses in Orange City throughout her years. She became a partner/business owner with friend, Alice Vander Stoep, of the children's store, The Swing Set, and so enjoyed being a business owner on Main Street in Orange City. Kathleen was herself a beloved and faithful daughter, sister, wife, mother, homemaker, business partner, and friend. She was full of grace and class, beautiful, inside and out, and full of artistic instincts. She had an innate gift of hospitality, a very deep love of "family," which included many dear aunts, uncles, and cousins, and family genealogy, and an abiding sense of humility and fun.

Kathleen is survived by her two brothers, Wilton Jan Wielenga, and Jack Wielenga and his wife Elaine; sister-in-law, Joyce De Vries; and her four children and their spouses, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, George and Pat De Vries, and their children, Jessica and Brad Hoberg, and Jennie and Casey Weerheim, great-grandchildren, Piper and Harrison; Nick and Cindy De Vries, and their children, Nicholas De Vries and his wife Sarah, and Jacob De Vries; Maria DeVries and Craig Carpenter, and their son, Joel; Nathan and Amy De Vries, and their children, Luke, Hannah and Lilly Kate.

In addition to her parents and husband, Kathleen was preceded in death by a beloved son, Joel De Vries, in July of 1983; and more recently, a grandson, Samuel George De Vries, on Nov. 30, 2020.

Any memorials may be sent to the George and Kathleen De Vries History Scholarship established at Northwestern College, to continue the work of educating the next generations about the past and how it informs our present.

The family expresses a special thanks to the wonderful and professional personnel and employees at Landsmeer and Prairie Ridge for their expert and loving care of our beloved parents over the years.