Memorial Board

 
Norine Arnold Reigelsberger, age 81, died on March 9th, 2012, after living 14 months with lung cancer. She graduated from Plover High School, studied interior design at Iowa State, then lived in Oregon and Kansas City (Missouri) before working in airline reservations for Braniff in Des Moines. When home for a visit, she met a Marine named Joe Reigelsberger at a dance at the Ridotto Ballroom (between Plover and Havelock). He had graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Pocahontas. Norine and Joe married in 1953, settled in Pocahontas, then moved to the Reigelsberger farm southwest of Rolfe where they farmed and raised their sons Greg (RHS 1978) and Mick (RHS 1980).

Norine was a hardworker, resourceful, and thoughtful. In a 1990s interview, she talked about growing up during the Great Depression

I don't think that children nowadays have nearly the imagination to make do with nothing like we did. I mean, well, they still play with boxes, but we did a lot of things without all the toys they have now. It seems like the minute a new toy comes out, the children have it, while we hardly ever had any toys. We couldn't afford them because we were raised in the Depression. I had one doll, and my mother made clothes for it. That was my big entertainment; everything was centered around this doll. Things just aren't that way anymore. I think maybe they're losing something by not having to create some of their own entertainment out of nothing.

Norine gardened, walked the beans, learned the computer long before computers were user-friendly to do the office work for the Reigelsberger Pioneer Seed business, and hosted the annual customer appreciation barbecue. Yet when asked if she considered herself to be a farmer, she replied, "Not really."

Norine had a cadre of loyal friends, especially the women she walked with in town, and knew the latest in community news. She was "there" with significant support for family, friends, and others in the community; active at Saint Margaret's Catholic Church; and a leader in many service organizations, including a leadershp position with the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs. She was an assistant 4H leader in the early 1960s and helped a neighbor girl learn to kill and dress three chickens for the county fair, even though neither Norine nor the girl had previous experience and needed to read the 4H instruction manual while, at the same time, trying to do the task at hand.

Norine was an excellent seamstress and cook–known for baking and sharing caramel and cinnamon rolls that would bring high dollar bids at local fundraising auctions. Her rolls also earned a blue ribbon at the state fair in 1984 and were once known as Chuck Offenberger's (the Des Moines Register's "Iowa Boy" columnist) favorite rolls.

Norine had an artistic flair as was evidenced in her choice of wardrobe and home furnishings. Also, she designed both the new house that was built on the farm around 1970 and the new house with pink door on Oak Street in Rolfe where she and Joe moved in 1992, when Mick and Sue Reigelsberger moved from Rolfe out to the family farm.  obituary

You may find further information about the Reigelsberger family in a chapter from Helen Gunderson's book, The Road I Grew Up On. There is also another chapter that includes oral history comments by Norine, Joe, and other residents of the road.

 

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