Viola Annette (Annie) Roed
Viola Annette (Annie) Roed
Viola Annette (Annie) Roed, age 95, of Mount Ayr, Iowa, passed away Monday, April 7, 2025, at the Mount Ayr Health Care Center. Annie was born April 4, 1930, Indianola, Iowa, the daughter of Murrell and Mary (Hamilton) Hickman. She graduated from Indianola in 1947 and then nursing school at Mercy Hospital. She met the love of her life, Chester Roed, who rented her room at her parent’s house in Indianola while he attended Simpson College. They were united in marriage in the parlor of that house on December 26, 1951.
Annie touched many lives in her career as a nurse, in many capacities including clinical nurse and hospital nurse. She is probably best known as the district school nurse and nursing aide instructor at Mount Ayr Community School District, where many students would seek her out for advice and mothering, only she could give. She was also known as a great quilter and won Best of Show at the County Fair in 1999.
Besides loving the reunions of her former nursing student colleagues from Mercy Hospital and talking to everyone about how the nuns at the hospital would run a very tight ship, her greatest joy was her family including her husband, her 3 children, her 5 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.
She is survived by her loving husband of 73 years, Chester Roed, and her children: Cherie, her partner Tom, her daughter Amanda, and her children Breana, Ethyn, Emma and Olivia; David and his wife Nancy, and their children Kyle, his partner Renae, and their children Jude, Thea, Sienna and Makenna; Ben and his wife Peggy, and their children Gabe and Natalie; Kara, her partner Shawn and their children Bella, Lexi, Mila and Ember; and Tim, and Ranee. She is also survived by her brothers, Charles Hickman, and Lester Hickman and his wife Shirley.
Annie is preceded in death by her parents, sister-in-law Peggy Hickman and brother-in-law Roy Roed and his wife Betty.
A celebration of life service was held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at Armstrong Funeral Home in Mount Ayr with Rev. Ben Roed and Rev. Lorinda Hoover, officiating. Special music was provided by Kyle Roed. A memorial fund has been established for the American Heart Association.
