Wava Arney

Wava Arney, 82, of Marshalltown, Iowa, passed away on Tuesday, September 2, 2014 at the Iowa River Hospice Home with her loving family by her side. Funeral services for Wava will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, September 8, 2014, at Mitchell Family Funeral Home. Public visitation will be held from 5:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 7, 2014 at Mitchell Family Funeral Home where her family will be present to greet friends. Memorial contributions may be directed in Wavas name to her family. For further information or to send a condolence please visit www.mitchellfh.com or call (641) 844-1234. Wava was born to Ralph H. Zesch and Vera E. Mohr Zesch in rural Ferguson, Iowa, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Ferguson High School in 1951 and married John Clare Arney July 15, 1951. John and Wava had five children; Dan (Colleen) Arney, of Laurel, IA, Tressa (Richard) Townsend of Muscatine, Ia, Jim (Sheila) Arney of LeGrand, IA, Randy Arney of Marshalltown, IA. and Lori (Brian) Thomas of Rochester, IA. 17 Grandchildren and 27 Great-Grandchildren. Wava made her home on the farm where she was born, for the majority of her life. She always loved sewing, cooking, and cutting hair. Her Aunt Opal taught her cake decoration and she made many beautiful cakes from fancy birthday cakes to wedding cakes. When her youngest child started kindergarten Wava went back to school to become a beautician. After graduation she opened her own salon in what was the back porch and very fittingly named it Hilltop-Wava-Lon. As busy as she was in her salon, she still managed to continue to cook and sew for all her family and friends. The door was always open to family and friends. In her later years she put aside most of her clothing patterns and turned to quilting. She also helped out with much of the cooking and activities at the Senior Center in Marshalltown. A big event in her life for 20 years was the annual craft and Bake Sale in Muscatine, hosted by her daughter. You could find her from the wee hours in the morning to the very late hours at night in the kitchen making dinner rolls (buns, as she called them). No matter how many she made, there were never enough. With all of her loves of cooking and sewing: her grandchildren and great grandchildren were her greatest love. She shared all of her many God-given talents with family and friends and she never knew a stranger. Although she had always attended Ferguson Christian Church (now Ferguson Bible Church) at the age of 29 she was not positive that she would one day be in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ so, she made sure and rededicated her life to Christ. She knew, where she was going and was ready for her suffering to be over. She was preceded in death by one grandson, her parents, one sister and one brother.