Mina Elizabeth Moore Robbins

Honored by:Jeanne Robbins Phillips
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My mother, Mina Elizabeth Moore Robbins, continues to show me by example how to be a kind, caring, generous, thoughtful, independent and concerned person.

She has also taught me to live life to the fullest. At age ninety, she continues to enjoy ballroom dancing and remains "the belle of the ball".

Nina Elizabeth Moore Robbins was born on April 15, 1905 at the family farm (now a Centennial Farm) north of Polk City, Iowa.

She graduated from Sheldahl High School as valedictorian and was awarded a scholarship to Drake University. However, her father thought they did too much "partying” at Drake so he enrolled her at Des Moines University, where she received her two year degree and teaching certificate. As an adult, she continued to take courses and ended up four hours short of a bachelor's degree from Drake.

She taught at Farrar, Iowa and in 1927 married Peter Mervin Robbins and lived in Woodward, Iowa until 1985 when she moved to the Scottish Rite Park in Des Moines.

While in Woodward, she was very involved in the United Methodist Church and community affairs, culminating in the Woodward Centennial in 1983.

After her children were in high school, she returned to teaching full time, retiring in 1965.

P. Mervin died in 1962.

Their children are Jeanne Dolores Robbins Phillips (Mrs. Willis Jean), B.S., Home Economics Education, 1950, Iowa State and Mervin Richard Robbins, B.S., Animal Husbandry, 1954, Iowa State. When M. Richard died in 1974, he was a Lt. Colonel in the U. S. Army.

Submitted on 1/25/95