Doris Margaret Mcclain

Harris, IA Doris M. McClain age100 formerly of Harris, IA died Friday, January 23, 2015 at the Country View Manor in Sibley, IA. Funeral service will be 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at United Methodist Church in Harris, IA, with Reverend Emmanuel T. Naweji officiating. Burial will follow in Union Cemetery at Harris. Visitation will be Tuesday, January 27th from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m., with family present from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Jurrens Funeral Home of Sibley, IA. Doris Margaret Christopherson was born October 8, 1914, in Sioux City, IA. She was the oldest of four children of Robert and Clara Christopherson who are all deceased. She graduated from Central high school in Sioux City, a school which students proudly nicknamed, "The Castle on the Hill", and is still standing to this day. On February 14, 1940, Doris was united in marriage to Lee McClain at the Lutheran Church in Sioux City, IA. Doris met Lee through his cousin Ebba. According to Lee, Doris was a petite young woman with brown eyes, shoulder-length light brown hair and a warm smile. Doris was a Sioux City girl; nonetheless, she came from a hard-working family, a mother who instilled family values in her children, and a loving father who worked as a building contractor until his untimely death, due to cancer. Our Grandpa Christopherson died before any of us children were born. Doris enjoyed talking about the day Lee gave her the engagement ring. She reminisced, "In those days, gloves were in fashion. I didn't wear my glove on my left hand after the ring was on my fingerI just carried it." In this way, everyone could see that she had an engagement ring and knew that she was going to be married to Lee. Mom liked to tell us about the choice she had to make. She worked as the secretary to the J.C. Penny's executive in Sioux City. When the J.C. Penny headquarters executives came to the Sioux City Store from New York, they must have been impressed because they offered her a job in New York to come work for them. Mom was a city girl, but made the choice to be a farmer's wife, and she said she never regretted it. Doris and Lee where married on February 14, 1940. After their honeymoon trip to Omaha, on March 1, 1940, Doris and Lee moved to their first home together on a farm 4 ½ miles south of Ocheyedan. On March 1, 1942, with the help of family and neighbors, they moved by horses and wagons to Harris, one mile east and ½ mile north. The farm was 160 acres and the large kitchen of the house had been the old landmark on the trail between Harris and Lake Park. Dorothy was born the next month. Robert, Mary and James were also born while living on this farm. On March 1, 1950, Doris and Lee bought the 160 acre farm ½ mile north where they lived the rest of their lives. Doris did not have any hobbies while the children were growing up. She was busy and happy being a farmer's wife, gardening, canning, freezing, feeding threshers and family, helping with livestock and fieldwork, and active in the Harris Methodist Church, which included teaching Sunday school. Doris and Lee raised their children in the Christian faith and set good examples for their children. She was also a member of the Harris "Keeping Up Club" and the "Iowa Federation of Women". Mom also played piano and organ, so she took over teaching Dorothy's piano students, when Dorothy left for Business College. After they retired, mom had time to take up knitting and provided all the grandchildren with beautiful hand-made Afghans. She took up a new hobby, oil painting, and loved to paint Texas bluebonnet pictures, Texas scenes, tropical scenes, and Iowa scenes. She has painted fall and winter Iowa scenes, Iowa bridges, the Ocheyedan Mound, a Mennonite barn and many others. Two of her paintings hung in the Ocheyedan Bank for many years. Several of her paintings are currently displayed at the Willow Creek State park off Highway 9. Mom and dad enjoyed thirty years of wintering in south Texas, where she did most of her painting. Some of our memories about mom while growing up: First of all, mom was a quiet and soft-spoken mother. We never saw any conflicts or arguments between mom and dad. Mom was a wonderful cook, and we always told her she was the "best cook in the county". We have memories of a bountiful table. When we had a crew of threshers in the summer, the table was set for a feast; fresh salads from the garden, heaping platters of corn on the cob and fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade bread. Of course there were fresh fruit pies for dessert heaped with fresh whipped cream from our cow, which mom said the cream was so thick and rich she didn't even have to whip it. In addition, mom always took home-made goodies and sandwiches and coffee out to the field for the combiners in mid-morning and again in mid-afternoon. Dorothy's memories go back to when her parents farmed with horses, and she remembered the farm horses' names, Pat and Mike. She remembers their first tractor was an old Alice Chalmers. You had to crank it up in the front in order to start it. She remembers "washing days" in the old house up the road. We didn't have "faucets", but had a pump in the kitchen sink. Mom would pump water and start a big tub of water heating on the stove overnight, and she sliced a bar of Ivory soap into the water. She remembered heating the water on the old corncob stove. Dad started the fire with corncobs and a shovelful of coal. On washing day the washing machine took up the center of the kitchen. And the table and chairs were moved off to the side to accommodate it. In the winter dad had clothes lines strung all over the house. Little Brother Bobby and Dorothy really loved it when mom hung up newly-washed sheets; because they loved playing hide-and-seek between the sheetsMom didn't like that too well. Although a quiet woman who rarely raised her voice, our Mother did get very excited occasionally. One incident very clear in our memories of mother concerns her old black boots which she kept on the back porch where all the family outdoor wear was kept. Mother was getting ready to go outside one day and always dumped her boots upside down before putting them on because crickets sometimes found their way into the boots lined up against the porch wall. We were just little and were in the kitchen, as she was going through this routine, when suddenly we heard a scream, then mom started yelling for dad to come quick! Dad came running to the house. There weren't any crickets in her boots; instead she had dumped out four furless baby mice. We had a good life growing up on the farm, in that generation. We all had jobs to do. Mom was very organized. We really don't remember any of us balking, when mom or dad told us to do something. We just did it, working together as a family. All the McClain's here today, as well as the Christopherson's, and other farm families are truly blessed, to be the children of hard-working parents, who instilled family values, honesty, love and demonstrated a strong faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Doris is survived by three children: Dorothy (Andy) Anderson of Mount Hood, FL, Robert (Jodie) McClain of Fulda, MN, and Mary L. (Mike) Mayer of Sibley, IA; nine grandchildren, nineteen great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren; and other extended family and friends. She was preceded in death by her parents; son, James (twin of Mary's) who was killed in action on June 12, 1967 in Phan Thiet, Vietnam; two brothers and one sister.