Donna Maas - Choir Director for 42 Years

MAAS, REDFERN, MCARTOR, WASSON

Posted By: Misty Christner (email)
Date: 6/20/2018 at 10:46:36

Source: Kalona News Columns Section pg. 3B unknown date

Donna Maas - Choir Director for 42 years

I met Donna at her Pleasantview duplex to which she moved in 2006. She has a very interesting story to tell. She is the daughter of Kenneth and Pauline Redfern, born at Yarmouth, Iowa, Des Moines County on April 10, 1930. She attended a consolidated grade school and high school in Yarmouth, graduating from high school in 1947. Her father was an Aberdeen Angus breeder. She also showed 4-H Angus cattle and sold 2 calves in 1947 to pay for her first year of college. She is a graduate of Grinnell College in 1951 in Music Education. She taught vocal music in the Montezuma Schools, 1st grade through high school, from 1951-1953.
Through Angus cattle sales, she met her future husband, Meredith Jr. Maas. He was a graduate of Iowa Wesleyan College and served in the Army in Germany from 1951-1953.
They were married September 19, 1953. They lived on a farm east of the Cheese Factory for 17 years, and lived on a farm on 500th Street west and north of Hills, for 35 years. During their marriage they raised Angus cattle, turkeys and hogs, as well as growing corn and soybeans.
Their children are Randy of Hiawatha who works for a trucking company, and Marjorie McArtor who is a special education teacher in the Mid-Prairie Elementary School in Kalona.
Donna has three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Donna attends Sharon Center United Methodist Church. Following her marriage, she taught voice and piano lessons privately for several years. Her hobbies include being choir director at the Sharon Church for 42 years. The choir provides service music on Sundays and sings a cantata at Christmas time. Several Mennonite friends have sung with the Sharon choir at Christmas for many years. The choir was the first group to sing in the new Miller Chapel at Pleasantview home. Donna said her other favorite things to do have included being with grandchildren, gardening, flowers and reading.
Her husband died on February 2, 1987. They did travel a bit through the years - to Houston, Anaheim and San Francisco on school board conventions. They went on a Northrup King trip to Hawaii in 1975. Donna also went on a cruise to Alaska in 2005. Other trips taken were to Germany for the Passion Play in Bavaria in 1990. In 1995, she went to Great Britain with about 20 other adults who accompanied the Washington United Methodist bell ringers and enjoyed their concerts and seeing some historical Methodist places.
"Oh," she said, "I attended Kirkwood Community College in 1987 and 1988 after which I was hired to work as a medical transcriptionist in the University of Iowa Department of Medicine where I worked for 11 years."
Donna says she is an Iowa Hawkeye basketball fan, still going to the games. She has a warm spot in her heart for Tom Davis and Lute Olsen! She enjoys Kalona for the friendly people, the duplex where she lives and for the activities available. She is an active person. Her mother, Pauline Redfern Wasson, nearly 95 years old, also lives in Pleasantveiw Home in the nursing wing.