Obituary of Lorene S. Frenzen

Lorene S. Frenzen, age 98 longtime resident of the Iowa City area died Wednesday, January 17, 2024, at Mercy Hospital under the very compassionate care of the Staff of Mercy and Iowa City Hospice.

Funeral services will be held at 11 am Monday, January 22, 2024, at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Iowa City, where there will be a time of visitation from 9am until services at the church. Burial will follow a reception at the church at Memory Gardens Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made in her memory to Iowa City Hospice or Tecumseh High School Sculpture Garden @ 760 Brown Street, Tecumseh, MI 49286. 

Lorene Saloma Dinger was born September 21, 1925, in Kahoka, Missouri, daughter of Henry and Saloma (Klingler) Dinger. She attended schools in Kahoka, graduating from Kahoka High School in 1943. She married Glenn F. Frenzen on March 9, 1947, in Kahoka. Lorene was the epitome of the stay at home mom, raising their three children, making sure everyone had what everyone needed, active in the community and church and still making a home of much love and faith. After Glenn’s retirement in 1993 the couple moved to Bass Lake near Knox, Indiana and eventually moved to Iowa City to be closer to family. Here she was active member of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, UMW, and a hardworking member of the Rags to Riches Quilting Club. This club is responsible for making quilts for the Women’s Shelter and Domestic Violence Home; also this group made numerous lap blankets for residents of the Iowa City Care Center. She and Glenn enjoyed traveling and camping, belonging to the Handicapped Travel Club and Good Sam’s Camping Group. Lorene loved life, and she loved her family and friends. Many of these people have been the recipient of her very personal, unique and simply beautiful greeting cards that she made and sent to others with her notes of love.

Her family includes her three children, Ron Frenzen (Sarah), Darold Frenzen (Melinda) and Judy Steffen (Jim); six grandchildren, Ellen Lower (Brian), Abigail Derryberry (Justin), Janae Goettelman (Adam), Kari Farrell (Ian), Nicole Sullivan (Johnny) and Jacob Steffen (Kimberly); and 13 great-grandchildren: Carter, Kennedy, Taylor, Madison, Colton, Benny, Fallon, Hattie, Reese, Macky, Jack, Evie and Hunter; and numerous nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, Glenn; three sisters, Lenora Hunziker, Marie Kimmey, and Clarann Drebes and an infant brother.