Eloise Snakenberg

Eloise May Snakenberg, 101, died November 11, 2023 at the English Valley Care Center in North English, Iowa.

 She was born March 2, 1922 near Richland, IA to George W. and Helen S. (Brolliar) Hadley.  She attended country schools in Jefferson, Keokuk, and Washington Counties, and graduated in 1939 from Richland High School.  She attended one year of William Penn College in Oskaloosa, IA.  Eloise taught in a little village called Valley in Washington County.  On August 2, 1941 she married CG Snakenberg in Kirksville, Missouri.  They would share 44 years of life, farming, and music together. 

During the years of World War II, she followed CG wherever he was camped and remained in California while he was stationed in the Army, and fought in The Pacific’s.  Eloise stayed with her sister Mary in Inglewood, CA and worked at a drug store, and Douglas Aircraft plant in an experimental department, hand crafting parts for new airplanes.  When the war was over, they returned to the Iowa farmstead, near Webster, where they became parents to four daughters.  Their lives were centered around CG’s music, family, farming, church activities, and traveling. 

When CG died, Eloise replaced music which their lives dwelled around to missionary work with the church.  She spent 9 years doing missionary work in several places of Red Bird Mission in Kentucky, Alaska, Russia, Haiti, St. Martin, Guatemala, and Louisiana.  She worked on projects completing churches, finishing the interior of a building to be used as a bible school room, a school for handicap children in Russia, and in Haiti they built a double building for school teachers, one for men and one for women to live in. Haiti was always near and dear to her heart because of the poverty, and she contributed to Water for Life Project to dig wells in Haiti and up keep on older wells. 

She was a member of the United Methodist Church in Webster, IA.  Her daughter’s report of how strong a woman she was in her faith and parenting and passed this strength down. 

She was preceded in death by her parents husband CG, daughter Karmen Snakenberg, great grandson Jacob Knipfer, son-in-law Jim Holeton and Bruce Melsha, and her siblings Jean Hull, Arlene Chandler, Mary Hart, and John Hadley.

She is survived by her three daughters Linda Melsha, Donna (Stan) Knipfer, and Patricia (Myles) Miller, 7 grandchildren: LaCane (Don) Anthony, Lance Holeton, Janora (Jeff) Hayes, Russell (Suzette) Knipfer, Paul (Crichton) Knipfer, Julian Miller, and Lausanne Miller, 7 great grandchildren, 2 step great grandchildren, 8 great great grandchildren, 6 step great great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. 

Memorial contributions may be made to the Sigourney Public Library, English Valley Care Center, or the Red Bird Mission.