By HDN Staff
EMMA VANDER VEN
LEWISTOWN Emma A. Vander Ven, 79, died Friday, April 13, 2001 at a Billings hospital due to complications from heart surgery.
Vigil services were Tuesday evening and funeral liturgy was Wednesday morning in Lewistown. Burial with military honors were at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lewistown.
Vander Ven was born Oct. 7, 1921 at Hazen, Ark. to Otis W. and Effie (Holmes) Sparks. She attended school in Arkansas and graduated from Maplevale High School at Maplevale, Ark.
She entered the Coast Guard in 1943 and served in Alaska during World War II. While in the Coast Guard in Alaska, she met Edwin Vander Ven. On Feb. 28, 1946, they were married in Seattle.
They moved to Havre and lived here until moving to Lewistown in 1958.
She worked at St. Leo's School hot lunch program in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, she was employed as a secretary to the Fergus County Superintendent of Schools. She was a member of St. Leo's Catholic Church and its St. Rita's Guild, a 25-year member of the Central Montana Traildusters, and was an active member of Kiwanis for many years. She was also a member of the Burlington Northern Railroad Retired Veteran's Association and active in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.
She enjoyed sewing, baking and gardening.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband in 1996 and two brothers, Alfred "Red" Sparks and Layton Sparks.
Survivors include her daughters, Lea Krudener of Worland, Wyo. and Rea Englund of Chester; sons, Ken Vander Ven of Lewistown and Neil Vander Ven of Port Townsend, Wash.; brothers, David L. Sparks and Ross A. Sparks, both of Little Rock, Ark.; nine grandchildren, and one great-grandson.
Memorials may be made to the Lewistown Kiwanis Scholarship Fund.
Creel Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
