Merridy M. Kienitz

Merridy was born in Hanlontown, Iowa on December 11, 1921, to Stewart and Rose (Struck) Espe. She was baptized in the Hanlontown Lutheran Church before moving to Welcome, MN where her father was manager of a grain elevator. Confirmation was in February of 1936. After graduating from Welcome Public High School in 1939, she attended Mankato State College graduating with a two year degree in Elementary Education. The next eleven years were spent teaching children in Martin Co. schools, Ceylon & Sherburn and the last three years in St. James. On February 29, 1952 Merridy and Francis Frank Kienitz were married, and lived in rural Blue Earth, farming & raising pure bred Brown Swiss cattle. Merridy taught Released Time classes at St. Paul Lutheran Church, but after Frank died in 1967, as a result of a tractor accident in 1960, she returned to college for a Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education. She taught one year at the catholic school and fifteen and a half years at the Blue Earth Public School, retiring in 1986. She had taught Sunday School for ten years before the Released Time classed, shes been an active member and officer of LWSP. Survivors are her son, Kim (& Annette) Kienitz of Detroit Lakes, her grandson, Travis Francis Kienitz, her step grandchildren, Tony Rosell & Karlee Rosell, her step great grandchildren, Malikai, Anton, Isaiah, and Sabina, one niece, Ginger Halvorson and one nephew, Jerry Hartung. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Frank in 1967, sister, Phyllis Hartung, an infant sister, a step-grandson, Chad Rosell and an infant step-great grandchild, William.