Grace Vivian Koolman Covert, age 89, of Wellsburg, Iowa, died Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at the Grundy County Memorial Hospital-Long Term Care Unit in Grundy Center, Iowa, from pneumonia and renal failure. Following cremation, Memorial Services will be 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, May 31, 2008, at the United Reformed Church in Wellsburg, with Pastor Harold Miller officiating. Visitation will be Saturday, from 1:00 P.M. until service time at the church. Inurnment will follow at the Wellsburg Reformed Church Cemetery in Wellsburg.
She and her family would like to extend heartfelt thanks for the loving care provided by the nurses and staff of Grundy County Memorial Hospital-Long Term Care Unit, where any memorial donations can be made in her name.
She was born November. 13, 1918. During her and her sister's 6 years at Wellsburg High School, they went to the "Sweet Sixteen" basketball tournament each year. A top guard, she later played AAU ball, and said there was only one woman she could not handle - Mildred Didrikson Zaharias, "The Babe".
G.V. went to AIB in Des Moines, moved to Chicago and later became an executive secretary to U.S. Ambassador Goldberg. She was married to her husband Marshall for 15 years before he died in 1965 at the age of 43. She was a very avid reader who passed on her love of movies, music and sports to her only son, Christopher Covert of West Des Moines. She also leaves behind her daughter-in-law Barbara and grandchildren Justin, Rebecca, and Brittany.
She was preceded in death by her husband Marshall Covert, her mother Gertrude and her father Bernard Koolman, and her sisters Bernice Koolman Wiebener and Lorraine Koolman Pachner.