Funeral services for Agnes Fickbohm will be 11AM Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at Komstad Covenant Church, rural Beresford, SD. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the church.

Agnes Ingeborg Fickbohm was born on December 9th, 1914 to parents: Anton and Johanna (Running) Wolden in Union County, near Spink, SD. She passed away at the Good Samaritan Home in Centerville, SD on February 18, 2011at the age of 96 years, two months and nine days.

She attended North Spink School for eight years. In 1930 the family moved to Phillip, SD in Haakon County to the family homestead. Agnes was born into a family of eight children. She married Alvin Fickbohm in 1930. Eventually, they settled on a farm near Volin, SD in 1948. The farm was of the old-fashioned, self-sustaining kind that had a big garden, livestock, milk, and plenty of fresh air. The home place is still owned by the family.

After Alvin died in 1977 she moved to Sioux City, IA, were she spent the next 25 years living on a quiet little street just up the block from her son Marvin and his family. Until recently, she lived in the Good Samaritan Home at Centerville, SD, near the home of her son Bill and his wife Doris.

Agnes' children are all still alive: Robert lives near Newell, SD in the northern Black Hills, Bill lives in Centerville, SD with his wife Doris, Marvin lives in Sioux City, Iowa with his wife Joan, Marian lives in Rapid City, SD, and Dean lives in Aiken, South Carolina with his wife, Kay. Also surviving are 14 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren, 10 great-great-grandchildren, brother, Arnold and three sisters, Helga, Alice and Julie.

She is preceded in death by her husband, her parents, two brothers, Oliver and Selmer; one sister, Mabel; two daughter-in-laws, one grandson, and one granddaughter.

Agnes was blessed with a sharp mind and good memory, which lasted until she passed away at 96 years. In November, Agnes was asked about some of the earliest things that she remembered. Her oldest memory was of when she was four years old: her dad was building a garage. Oliver, her brother, and she were playing among the discarded lumber. Oliver jumped on the end of a teetering board and the other end came up and hit her on the knee, which apparently made a lifelong memory of the incident. She also clearly remembered playing by the old apple tree, using crates for furniture.

She was married young, and lived the busy life of a farm wife for years, and many family members remember her quiet form as she bustled from the pantry to the side of the big wood-burning stove. She made delicious, dense, white bread to be eaten with spun honey, and turkeys that were baked to perfection in the temperamental heat of the wood-burner.

Family get-togethers were frequent and musical. She enjoyed listening to the tunes made by her husband, sons and daughter, and later by grandchildren. She enjoyed painting, collecting dolls, reading, and attending church. She also enjoyed going to family reunions her whole life, in a family that believed in staying in touch family was strong and a recurring theme in her life. She had much to say of the relationships between people, and although she was quiet, she observed, shrewdly, the events that made up family life.

She was especially concerned with the relations of parents and children, in the world today, and some of her strongest opinions were on the subject of parental guidance and discipline.

Two days before her death, as she was being read the Bible, she reaffirmed her life long faith in Jesus Christ in a conversation with her daughter-in-law, Joan. The presence of this faith is a great comfort to the family that remains behind.