Margaret A Sponsler

Margaret Anne (Tredennick) Sponsler, age 96, passed away on Saturday, February 6, 2021 at the Comfort House in Pella, Iowa.  Margaret was born on November 1, 1924 to Ray H. and Lois B. (Hamilton) Tredennick in Des Moines, Iowa.  When she was four, they moved on a farm south edge of Derby, Iowa.  In 1939 they moved into Derby in a telephone office where her mother worked as an operator on the switchboard and her father was an lineman and farmer.

When Margaret was growing up, she helped her parents with house and farm chores.  She would gather eggs, get wood and cobs for the cook stove and heater in the living room, and pump water into the tank  for the livestock. Margaret mowed the yard, help plant garden in the spring.  When she was young, Margaret enjoyed the free movies that Derby would have in the summer and band concert on Saturday nights in the park. 

The first week of September the county fair would start.  Margaret had a Shetland black and white pony named Keno which she entered for several years and won blue and red ribbons. 

Margaret went and graduated from the Derby School District.  In high school her favorite sport was basketball which she played forward all four years. They nicknamed her “Carrot Curls” because of her red hair. 

In Margaret’s senior year she met Kenneth Sponsler after he moved from Humeston to Derby.  He would come to all her basketball games and even went to the same Methodist Church she attended.  On September 8, 1943 at the Cottage Grove Presbyterian Church in Des Moines, Iowa, they were united in marriage.  To this union four children were born, Lee, Rex, Brent, and Wendy.  They lived on a farm around the Derby area most of their 55 years together.  Margaret worked part-time at a grocery store the first year of their marriage and at the Windmill Restaurant in Humeston in later years.  For the Leon and Derby schools she would work as a substitute cook.  Margaret was given a second nickname  “Rusty” while she worked one year at the J.C. Penny’s in Des Moines.  They enjoyed western square dancing, snowmobiling, horse races in Omaha, playing cards with the neighbors and going to the Iowa State fair.  She always loved cooking, canning and trying new recipes.  Margaret would raise 150 chickens each year.  To help feed the men at oat threshing, filling the silos and putting up hay and of course her own family. 

She belonged to the Derby Methodist Church WSCS ( Women’s Society of Christian Service), neighborhood clubs, the Garden Club and a ladies card club in Chariton. 

In May, 1999, her beloved husband passed away.  Soon after that she moved to Pella living by her son and family. 

Margaret is survived by her children, Lee of Pella, Rex ( wife Janet) of Urbandale, Brent ( wife Julie) of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Wendy (husband Todd) of Dallas Center, fourteen grandchildren and nine  great-grandchildren.  She will be greatly missed by her family and friends.

Preceded in death by her parents, Ray and Lois Tredennick, her loving husband Kenneth Sponsler and daughter-law Pat Sponsler.

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