Marguerite Seifert Sohner

Moline, Illinois Marguerite Seifert Sohner, 95, of Moline, died Monday, April 30, 2001, at the home of her daughter, Sally, in Moline. Services are 11 a.m. Thursday at First Congregational Church, Moline. The Reverend Dr. Robert Miller will officiate. Private burial is in Riverside Cemetery, Moline. Visitation is 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Trimble Funeral Home, Moline. Memorials may be made to Genesis VNA Hospice, 1225 East River Drive, Davenport, or Arrowhead Ranch, 1220 104th Street, Coal Valley. Marguerite Fredericka Seifert was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 20, 1905, the daughter of Joseph and Augusta (Schmidt) Seifert. At the age of two, she and her parents moved to Muscoda, Wisconsin, where she lived until 1920 when they moved to Richland Center, Wisconsin. She graduated from Richland Center High School at the age of sixteen. One of her proudest personal accomplishments was to have been the only girl in the all boys high school marching band in which she played the tuba, and which took first place in the Midwest High School Band Festival at Soldier's Field in Chicago. After graduating from high school and working for a local dentist, she went on to become one of the first graduates of Marquette University's School of Dental Hygiene in 1928. She loved her profession and was a lifetime member of the Marquette University Alumni Association of Dental Hygienists. During this time, she met and married E. H. "Bill" Sohner of Moline on July 14, 1934, and moved to Moline in 1935. Mr. Sohner died May 26, 1997. She was a member of First Congregational Church, Katherine Butterworth Circle of Kings' Daughters, Short Hills Country Club, and Ladies Auxiliary of Knights Templar Club of Summit Lake, Wisconsin. She also actively participated in the Lincoln School PTA, the Moline Public Hospital Auxiliary, was on the Boards of both the Moline and Rock Island YWCA, and was an American Red Cross Gray Lady. She loved to play golf, although she said she was never very good at it, and she and Bill loved to dance. They were members of the Tri-City Dance Club, Club 70, and with others, formed the Half Past Eighty Dance Club. She was part of a group of close friends who called themselves "The Birthday Club." As her husband reached retirement, they spent each summer at their summer cottage in Wisconsin and found time to travel through Europe, Greece, Spain, and Mexico. "Marge" is survived by her daughters, Sally Sohner, with whom she made her home in Moline, and Nancy Gibson of Independence, Missouri; three grandchildren and their spouses, Heather and Tony Allen, Jennifer and Matthew Ringgold, and Scott Gibson, all of the Kansas City area. Also surviving is her youngest sister, Louise Hayes, aged 90, of Milwaukee, and nieces and a nephew, Pat Hayes, Luck Staack Perez, Betsy Staack Vittinghoff, Sarah Staack Roll, John Staack, and Kathryn Wirtz. She was preceded in death by her husband, an infant son, E. H. "Billy" Sohner III, her sister, Myrtle Soper, and her parents. END OF OBITUARY