Wanda Fritz

     Wanda Fritz age 79 of Sioux Center, IA died Thursday, September 22, 2022, at Sioux Center Community Hospital.

     A memorial service will take place at 1:00 PM, Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at New Life Reformed Church in Sioux Center, Iowa, with Reverend Dan Kruse, officiating.  Livestream Link Wanda Fritz Service

     Visitation will take place, Monday, September 26^th from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at New Life Reformed Church in Sioux Center.

     Burial will take place at a later date at Friesland Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Ackley, Iowa.

     The family prefers memorials to: American Field Service, American Heart Association or St. Jude Children's Hospital.

Wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Wanda Kaye Fritz began her debut singing in the Lord’s heavenly choir on September 22, 2022, leaving family and friends behind to pass along her life’s legacy. Wanda will best be remembered for sharing her “glad notes” of love and joy through music and in the animated stories told about her children and grandchildren of whom she was so very proud.

Wanda was born on May 28, 1943, to Merlin and Berniece (Brower) Bangasser in Aplington, Iowa.  She was raised in Ackley, Iowa living on various farms around the area. She attended Ackley-Geneva High School, graduating in 1961. Wanda loved learning and the academic setting boasting of attendance records and “straight A’s”. She became a prolific reader and talented writer. Her early years included being involved in many musical activities. She was the oldest daughter in a family of five children so was often found taking care of her younger siblings and cousins. Family relationships and family gatherings were especially important to her from an early age.

In the same year as her graduation, Wanda was united in marriage to her high school sweetheart Gordon Fritz on December 2 (1961) at East Friesland Presbyterian Church near Ackley. They made their first home in Iowa Falls before moving back to rural Ackley where Wanda worked briefly as a secretary at the high school, then as an active housewife and mother raising her four children. Wanda took her mothering and housewife job seriously – instilling in her children a love for learning, music, and travel. She could often be found making or delivering lunches or baked goodies at the farm, “plunking away” at the piano in “her” living room or carting her kids around to their various activities. Wanda and Gordon believed in providing as many opportunities for their children as they could make possible.

As a stay-at-home mom, Wanda delighted in spending some of her free time volunteering as a Regional Representative for American Field Service, an international student exchange program. Over the years, the Fritz household hosted several exchange students from many different countries - a few who would have a lifelong impact on and connection to the family. Wanda was a talented musician and was the choir director and worship leader at Faith Presbyterian church for many years writing several of her own holiday and Vacation Bible School programs. In her early married years, she sang in a locally known trio called The Gladnotes traveling around to many churches and community events praising Jesus through gospel music and hymns - with favorites from the likes of Sandi Patti and the Gaither Vocal Band.

After her kids were grown, Wanda began work at the Ackley Pizza Ranch where she made many friends and was able to stay social and maintain her community ties. In 2003, after 42 years of farm life together, Wanda and Gordon made one of their bigger life decisions together.  Leaving numerous family and friends and everything they knew, they made the move west across the state to Sioux Center, IA to be closer to their children’s growing families and invest full-time in their role as grandparents. Undoubtedly, the role of grandmother, turned out to be one of Wanda’s best life-callings!  Her work at Evie’s Hallmark, her attendance at her grandchildren’s events, and her membership at New Life Church also helped her develop new and lasting friendships that she treasured and for which she will be remembered by those in the Sioux Center community.

Wanda was a member of the East Friesland Presbyterian Church and Faith Presbyterian Church of rural Ackley, and most recently New Life Reformed Church of Sioux Center.  Her faith was firm and dynamic. When Wanda said she would pray for you, there was no doubt she would be in communion with her Father and Lord with determination and expectancy. This, of course, followed by several lengthy phone calls to close friends to recruit their prayers and support as well.

However, it was Wanda’s love for the Christmas holiday that may well leave the most indelible mark on all those who knew her, especially her children and grandchildren. For Wanda, Christmas was not a seasonal holiday; it was that which each year was built upon. For six months of the year Wanda was planning Christmas: carefully selecting and buying the yearly Christmas ornaments for each child and grandchild and pestering each one to “get me your wish list”, while the other six months were spent celebrating Christmas joy in her elaborately decorated home. Wanda proudly boasted that her trees (one for every room) might come up in October and stay up “as long as she felt like it”. Her children and grandchildren will forever be blessed by this understanding of the significance of her Savior’s birth and her strong faith and knowledge of Jesus as her friend and Lord.

Those left to cherish her memory are her husband of 60 years, Gordon; children: Blayne (Jennifer) Fritz and their children, Eric, William,  Stephen, Kayla and Gavin Anderson; Natalie (Jamie) Brand and their children, Benjamin Jones and Zachary Brand; Melanie Cleveringa and her children, Carrigan (Ben) Lewis, Tanner, Camryn, and Tage; Nathan (Jodi) Fritz and their children, Spencer, Lindi, Kylar and Mylie; 2 great grandchildren, Rose Lewis and Luca Fritz; siblings, Lynn (Jane) Bangasser, De Alda (Marvin) Kramer, Delene (Randy) Knoll, Brian Bangasser, and sister-in-law Marlene (Irvin) Klahsen; along with extended relatives and friends.

She was preceded in death by her daughter, Kaye Elizabeth; her parents, Merlin and Berniece Bangasser and Albert and Luella Fritz.

                                                        Blessed Be Her Memory.