Miss Adriana Boender, age 89, of Sheldon, formerly of Hospers, passed away on Saturday, March 15, 2014, at the Sanford Sheldon Medical Center.
There will be a funeral service on Wednesday, March 19, at 2:00pm, at the First Reformed Church in Hospers. The Rev. Milton Sikkema will officiate. Interment will follow at the Hospers Cemetery. Visitation with the family present will be the hour before the service on Wednesday at the church. Arrangements are with the Oolman Funeral Home in Hospers.
Adriana was born during threshing time on July 14, 1924, at Hospers, the daughter of Joe and Rena (De Boer) Boender. She attended a country school in Lynn Township and graduated from the Hospers Public High School in 1942 and the Northwestern Junior College in Orange City in 1944.
She began her career teaching first and second grade in Lake Park and then at the Hospers Public School for three years. In 1952, she graduated from the Fort Wayne Bible College in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Adriana then taught fourth grade in Kentucky, at Saylerville and at the Annville Bible Institute. She spent a year teaching missionary children in Chiapas, Mexico, and then moved to Salix, where she taught remedial reading from 1971 to 1975. She continued teaching in the fourth grade at the Prairie Hills Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, until 1990.
She then returned to Hospers, making her home with her sister, Lucretia.
In 2009, she moved to the Christian Retirement Home and in October of 2011, she became a resident of the Sanford Senior Care, both in Sheldon.
She was a member of the First Reformed Church, where she was involved with Bible study groups. She also volunteered with Bibles for Missions, the Bible League, and the Reuter American Legion Auxiliary in Hospers.
She leaves behind two brothers and two sisters, Henry Boender, and his wife, Anna, of Sibley; Arlene Ver Hoek, of Estelline, South Dakota; Josephine Van Oort, of Denver, Colorado; and the Rev. John Boender, and his wife, Ruth, of Sheldon; and several nephews and nieces.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by two brothers, another John in infancy and Claude Boender, and his wife, Lucy; a sister, Lucretia Boender; and two brothers-in-law, Gerrit Ver Hoek and Jean Van Oort.
