Douglas Mauch

Sibley, IA

      Douglas Mauch age 79 of Northfield, MN, formerly of Sibley, IA, died Monday, March 15, 2021, at the Three Links Care Center in Northfield, MN.

    Funeral mass will be 10:00 a.m., Saturday, October 23rd at St. Andrew's Catholic Church is Sibley, IA. Burial will follow at St. Andrew's Cemetery. 

     Family will be receiving friends one hour prior to the service at the church.

     The Mauch family invites everyone to join them for fellowship at Drink Me, in what they used to know as the Carlson Building, where they and their dad used to work, at the corner of Ninth Street and Second Avenue, starting at 12:30 p.m..

      In lieu of flowers, etcetera, Matt, Steph, and Jay ask that donations be made in Doug’s name to causes that support and protect the animals and natural world that he loved, so that both our and future generations may enjoy them:

the Humane Society

the Ocean Conservancy     ~     the Coalition for Rainforest Nations

     Among the things Doug Mauch loved so well in his life were his dogs, springer spaniels Rex, Liza, Rebel, Brandy, and Bagel, Siberian husky Kato, and husky mix and fence-climber Pepper. Born in an era too late to be the cowboy of his dreams, which he expounded upon in a speech as a cancer survivor in a Relay for Life event at the local football field where he was once a star player, Doug did as was expected of him and entered the family business (Mauch Oil Company) after college at Iowa State, rather than becoming the wildlife biologist or conservationist he really wanted to be. Doug loved dancing with his wife Carol (Kass) since they were high-school sweethearts headed off to the Roof Garden. Doug married Carol in 1965, raising Matt, Stephanie, and Jay in Oelwein, Ia., and Worthington, Minn., before returning to Sibley in 1978, to the home where he would plant what grew into a lovely urban forest, where he lived out his pre-nursing-home life. Matt, Steph, and Jay all eventually moved to the Twin Cities, where Doug and Carol were able to visit on weekends and holidays–and sometimes in the middle of the week—especially during their retirement. These portable family gatherings over grilled foods and drinks included Matt’s wife Angie, Stephanie’s husband Terry, as well as Stephanie’s children Ethan and Ellie, and over the years a menagerie of grandpets—Wednesday, Wellstone, Zooey, Patch, Cleo, Charlie, and Reina. The Twin Cities visits were a continuation of the Sunday gatherings the Mauch five were part of for years and years (decades) at the Greg and Mary Kass home in Sibley, joined there by the families of Carol’s sisters and their spouses and children. A further portability of this Sunday gathering included the extended family’s annual trek to the Kasstle at Lake Namakagon in northern Wisconsin, where Doug spent the days with live bait and tackle, trying to catch the elusive walleye and even more elusive muskie. Doug was always at home-away-from-home in a boat, on a lake or slough, with a rod and reel or his trusty Model 12 in hand. He love watching and feeding the many birds that found his trees safe harbor, and rescued and revived shop cat Maytag until she disappeared. Barely a fortnight into his seventy-ninth year, Doug died peacefully just before the clock struck twelve, with Carol at his side, on March 15 in Northfield, Minn., where Jesse James and his gang famously robbed a bank in 1876 in the kind of exploit depicted in the Westerns and other movies and books Doug loved. Aside from the dogs and Maytag, and some of the grandpets, Doug is survived by the aforementioned, as well as Ethan’s spouse Andrea, sisters and brothers in law Kim, Steve, Lynn, Mark, Claudia, and Ed, and their children (Doug’s nieces and nephews)—they who make up the Namakagon crew—as well as his sister Shelly and her family, and his nieces and nephews by two sisters who preceded Doug in death, Sonnie and Sandra. Doug was also preceded in death by his parents, Sam and Gladys, and his beloved uncle and aunt, Swede and Alice.