Ethel Marie (Tarvestad) Kurtz

KURTZ, ETHEL MARIE (TARVESTAD) 98, of Madison, WI died Friday, November 3, 2006, in Madison, WI. She was born in Lansford, North Dakota, on March 9, 1908, the daughter of Mary and Louis Tarvestad. She was educated in a one-room school near the family farm, attended secondary school in Lanesboro, MN, and graduated from Minot High School, Minot, N. D. She received her bachelor's degree in 1929 from Jamestown College (N. D.) where she met her future husband, Lowell Myers "Pat" Kurtz. In 1931 they were married in Schenectady, N. Y., where he worked as an electrical engineer at the General Electric Company. Mrs. Kurtz was trained as a science teacher, specializing in chemistry, and taught in Bottineau, N. D.; Schenectady; Erie, PA., and Jefferson County, KY. She is rKatherine Kirwin b.JPGemembered as an enthusiastic teacher of chemistry at Waggener High School and took great pride in the accomplishments of her former students. She was an active member of the American Association of University Women and in Louisville was a member of Calvin Presbyterian Church. Throughout her life, Ethel enjoyed family and friends, poetry, traveling, reading, cooking and classical music. She and her husband traveled to Norway, where they visited her relatives, and to many other places in Europe, North and South America, Australia and the South Pacific. She is survived by her four children; Mary (Peter) Monkmeyer of Madison; Judith Litt of Portland, OR; Sonia (Robert) Jones of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL and William (Sandra) Kurtz of Chattanooga, TN; nine grandchildren and fifteen great- grandchildren. Her husband preceded her in death in 1989. A family memorial service will be held at a later date.
Published in The Courier-Journal on 11/12/2006