G. Maxine Tenold

Georgia Maxine (Dane) Tenold was born December 18, 1912, and died April 5, 1993. Maxine, as she was known to her friends and family, was raised on a farm near Williamsburg, Iowa, where she lived with her parents, George and Eva Dane, and her three sisters, Juanita, Dorothy, and Marilyn. Life as an Iowa farm girl in the early nineteen-hundreds taught Maxine many valuable lessons about the merits of hard work, being prepared, and facing life head-on. This philosophy for living she manifested throughout her life and imparted by example to her children, grandchildren, and students.

Maxine attended country school in York Township and high school in Williamsburg. She went on to attend Iowa State College during 1930 – 32, graduating with a teaching certificate in Home Economics. Maxine was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, a national honorary music society, and played first violin in the Iowa State Symphony Orchestra. From 1932 to 1936 Maxine taught Home Economics in the rural Iowa communities of Hanlontown and Dumont, finally settling in Kensett. On June 21, 1936, she married Orland Tenold of Kensett, and remained there for the rest of her life. They had three children: Georgia Fay, Terry Ore, and Kathy Jo. Terry went on to become a second-generation alumnus (1971) of Iowa State. Maxine had three grandchildren: Kristopher, Timothy, and Susanne Haugebak, children of Jo (Tenold) Haugebak. In her later years, she became the proud great-grandmother of Jeremiah, son of Kristopher.

After leaving her farming community for the big city of Ames, Maxine showed an independent streak by becoming a teacher and setting out on her own in strange surroundings. Eventually she married and tackled the jobs of being a homemaker and mother just as the Second World War began and times became uncertain throughout the nation. Through the forties and fifties, she exhibited resourcefulness and self-reliance gained from her farm upbringing by growing and preserving a large portion of the family's food and sewing many of the family's clothes. Having demonstrated complete mastery of the domestic arts, Maxine stepped out from behind the apron in the sixties and seventies to assist her husband in the family business and even to run her own Avon enterprise for a while.

Although Maxine left farm life forever after graduating from high school, she retained a love for animals and growing things all her life. Flower beds bloomed near the house and a large vegetable garden flourished in the back yard every spring, and house plants remained vibrant even during the bleak winter months under her careful nurturing. The people whom Maxine held dear also benefited from her unselfish nature and the constancy of her love. These qualities were always especially evident in Maxine's relationships with her grandchildren and great-grandson, all of whom were naturally drawn to her both in times of joy and sorrow. To her family and close friends, Maxine epitomized the spirit of the original pioneer women who did so much to make Iowa the great place to live and grow up in that it is today.

Submitted on 7/1/96