Marquoketa C. Renkel

Marquoketa C. Renkel

A celebration of the life of Marquoketa C. Renkel, 94, will be held at 2 p.m. March 10, 2007, at the Cicmanec-Pier Funeral Home in Lusk. Pastor Tom Strock will officiate. A reception will follow at the funeral home. Cremation has taken place and the ashes will be interred next to her husband at Linn Grove Cemetery, Greeley, Colo.

Marquoketa Renkel passed away early Monday morning, Feb. 19, 2007 at the Niobrara Health and Life center, Lusk. She fell the week before and developed pneumonia, bringing her life to a close.

Born on Nov. 22, 1912 in Griswold, Iowa, Marquoketa was the only child of John and Minnie (Felker) Hamlin. They lived in small communities in Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado. While living with her Aunt Marie and Uncle Earl Rinehart, and cousin, Helen, Marquoketa graduated from Greeley High School in May of 1930. After graduation, Marquoketa returned to New Raymer to live with her parents.

During those next few years, she helped a group of women cook and serve a hot dish, usually soup, to the school children. This was probably one of the first hot school lunch programs in the state of Colorado before the government began providing them in the 1940's. Also during this time she met the math teacher and superintendent of the New Raymer School. Marquoketa married Rex Alexander Renkel in Akron, Colo., on Thanksgiving Day, in November 1933. Together the couple had two daughters, Jane Renkel and Joan (Renkel) Lenz.

During the Renkel family's lifetime, they lived in many communities, including Linden, Strasburg, Denver and Greeley, Colo., and Sheridan. After Marquoketa's husband, Rex, of 63 years died on Jan. 13, 1997, she moved to Denver; living at The Quincy Place.

Following a fall, she was moved to the Marriott Brighton Gardens, an Assisted Living and Nursing Home in Denver, before moving to Lusk in September 2005 to live the remainder of her life at the Niobrara Health and Life Center in Lusk.

While living in Sheridan, from the 1940's until 1971, Marquoketa worked for several businesses and in the offices of Dr. Will Schunk and Dr. Seymore Thickman. Marquoketa was active in the Daughters of the Nile, Eastern Star, The Beauciant, the Presbyterian Church, all in Sheridan and the Senior Center in Greeley, Colo. She enjoyed her grandchildren and great-grandchildren very much, was a great cook, and enjoyed playing the piano, growing plants and working in the garden. When she was younger she had a green thumb and enjoyed sewing and doing beautiful hand embroidery.

Marquoketa was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Rex. She is survived by her daughters, Jane Renkel of Denver, and Joan Lenz and her husband, Gene of Lusk; four granddaughters and their husbands, Leslie and Jay Hammond of Lusk; Laurie and Ken Vogel of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Tyler and Marlin Kemmer, of Phoenix, Ariz.; Kari Lenz and Ben Rafter of Seattle, Wash.; and eight great-grandchildren: Andrew and Adrienne Hammond, Corrine, Katie, Trevor and Taylor Vogel, and Tana and Mara Kemmer, one sister-in-law, Ina E. Winger of Brush, Colo., and a cousin who was like her sister, Helen Mayfield of Scottsdale, Ariz.

Marquoketa will be missed by her family and many friends, who considered her time in Lusk to be a blessed end to her life. Her family thanks all those who tended her with such loving kindness during the last 18 months.

Memorials may be made in her name to the Niobrara County Library Foundation at P.O. Box 510, Lusk, WY 82225.

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