April 15, 2025
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Viola A. Roed

Mount Ayr

By Armstrong Funeral Home
Viola Annette “Annie” Roed, 95, of Mount Ayr, passed away Monday, April 7, 2025, at the Mount Ayr Health Care Center.

Viola Annette “Annie” Roed, 95, of Mount Ayr, passed away Monday, April 7, 2025, at the Mount Ayr Health Care Center. (Contributed )

Viola Annette “Annie” Roed, 95, of Mount Ayr, passed away Monday, April 7, 2025, at the Mount Ayr Health Care Center. A celebration of life will be begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 15, at Armstrong Funeral Home in Mount Ayr.

Memorials are directed to the American Heart Association.

Annie was born April 4, 1930, the daughter of Murrell and Mary (Hamilton) Hickman in Indianola. She graduated from Indianola in 1947 and then went to nursing school at Mercy. She met the love of her life, Chester Roed, who rented her room at her parent’s house in Indianola while he attended Simpson College. They were united in marriage Dec. 26, 1951, in the parlor of that house.

Annie touched many lives in many capacities during her career as a nurse, including as a clinical nurse and hospital nurse. She is probably best known as the district school nurse and nursing aide instructor at Mount Ayr Community School District, where many students would seek her out for advice and mothering only she could give. She was also known as a great quilter and won Best of Show at the county fair in 1999.

Besides loving the reunions of her former Mercy Hospital nursing student colleagues and talking to everyone about how the nuns at the hospital would run a very tight ship, her greatest joy was her family including her husband, her three children, five grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

She is survived by her loving husband of 73 years, Chester Roed and her children: Cherie, her partner Tom, her daughter Amanda and her children, Breana, Ethyn, Emma and Olivia; David and his wife Nancy and their children, Kyle, his partner Renae and their children, Jude, Thea, Sienna and Makenna; Ben, his wife Peggy and their children, Gabe and Natalie; Kara, her partner Shawn and their children, Bella, Lexi, Mila and Ember; Tim and Ranee. She is also survived by her brothers, Charles Hickman and Lester Hickman and his wife Shirley.

Annie is preceded in death by her parents; sister-in-law Peggy Hickman; brother-in-law Roy Roed and his wife Betty.