DEATHS

AND OBITUARIES

Irma Koop

Services for Irma Lorene Koop, 100, who died Sept. 13, will be 11 a.m. Saturday at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church. Interment will be an hour before the service at the church cemetery.

Born July 16, 1926, in Hillsboro to Jonathan and Marie (Plenert) Ratzlaff, she moved with her family when she was 2 years old to the panhandle of Oklahoma, where her father farmed during the Dust Bowl.

She attended Bethany School near Balko, Oklahoma, and was baptized in a farm pond and joined Balko Mennonite Brethren Church.

During her junior and senior years, she attended Corn Bible Academy in Corn, Oklahoma.

She then attended Tabor College and, after one year, was recruited to teach at a one-room school south of Buhler.

She returned to Tabor for another year before being recruited to teach at her former school, Bethany. She taught for two years in Oklahoma and in 1950 accepted a teaching position in Lehigh.

She married Bennie Koop on June 10, 1951, and became a homemaker. She later worked at Daylight Donut Shop and in 1972 at Tabor College’s cafeteria, where she remained for 27 years.

She taught children’s classes and worked in the church kitchen at Hillsboro MB Church and in retirement volunteered at Hillsboro Senior Center and Et Cetera Shop for 17 years.

Survivors include daughter Brenda Coryea, Hillsboro; sons Kim Koop, Hillsboro, and Dale Koop, Abilene; nine grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

Her husband, brothers Harvey and Kermit, and sister Merlie preceded her in death.

Memorials have been established with the church and Parkside Homes.