Sarah Beane

Sarah Janet Squires Beane, 75, died on April 22, 2015. She was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on February 2, 1940, the second child of Richard and Janet Harris Squires. Until her teenage years her family lived in Gladwyn, Pennsylvania, then in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where her father took a teaching position, and finally in Ames, Iowa . Sarah attended Haverford Friends Elementary School, the French high school in Addis Ababa, graduated from Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, attended Oberlin College and obtained her degree in Physical Therapy from Washington University in St Louis in 1963. Sarah worked as a physical therapist at several hospitals in the Minneapolis area before joining the American Friends Service Committee rehabilitation team in Vietnam in 1967 to work with civilian amputees during the war there. Later she opened new physical therapy departments in Ames and Manchester, Iowa. During these years her hobbies were singing and skiing. Sarah married Daniel Beane on April 5, 1969. Their first two years of married life were spent in Manchester, Iowa where she established a physical therapy department. Then they returned to Dans family farm where she was active in the management and work of the farm. Sarahs service to the larger community included serving on the regional board of the American Friends Service Committee, volunteering for Head Start, serving as 4-H club leader for the Marion Merry Maids and the Marshall County Mounties, being a spokesman for the American Soybean Association, leading as an officer for the Marshall County Porkettes, serving on the executive committees of the local and state boards of the American Association of University Women, helping as a regular volunteer at the Green Mountain School, being an officer of the OWO womens club and participating in the Marshall County Farm Bureau Womens organization. She was hostess to foreign exchange students and international visitors from many continents. Along with her husband, she shared in the leadership of several youth mission teams to Tanzania, Kenya, Bolivia and Belize. They also spent several winters serving at the Friends Theological College in Kenya and later at the Cayo Deaf Institute in Belize. Sarah was a lifelong member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and was an active participant in the fellowship of the Gladbrook Chapel United Methodist Church where she was a Sunday School pianist and teacher and was active in the Volunteers womens group. For many years she participated in the international Bible Study Fellowship. She and her husband, Dan, established the Beane-Squires Scholarship for graduating seniors of the Green Mountain-Garwin school to recognize and encourage high moral standards among the students. Sarah is survived by her husband, Dan, her daughter, Heidi (Brett) Koopman of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota and their two children Elijah and Gabriella, and her son Douglas (Heather) Beane of Sydney, Nova Scotia and their 4 children Hannah, Abigail, Saralyn and Christopher. She is also survived by her brother E. Chadwick Squires and her sister Barbara French. She was preceded in death by her parents Richard and Janet Squires. A memorial service will be held in the manner of Friends at 3:00 PM on Sunday, April 26 at the Chapel United Methodist Church at 1597 Abbott Avenue, rural Gladbrook, IA. Memorials may be directed to the Cayo Deaf Institute in Belize (with a notation on checks made out to Chapel Church) or the Friends Theological College of Kenya (with a notation on checks made out to Friends United Meeting).