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Donna Novak
DONNA NOVAK
Anamosa
Donna Novak, 86, died Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, at the Jones Regional Medical Center, Anamosa, following a brief illness. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 26, at Goettsch Funeral Home, Anamosa, where friends may call after 9:30 a.m. Interment will be in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Early, Iowa, in the spring.
Thoughts, memories and condolences may be left at www.goettschonline.com. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to palliative care at Jones Regional Medical Center.
Surviving are two daughters, Joan (Bob) Holt, Lexington, Ky., and Vicki (Jon) Russell, Cedar Rapids; three grandchildren, Brooke (Jon) Denio, Lexington, and Mike Russell and Ryan (Keely) Russell, both of Cedar Rapids; four great-grandchildren, Knox, Emsley, Ellisyn and Kason; three brothers, Dale (Bev) Mooney, Sac City, Dick (June) Mooney, Alta, and Damon (Pam) Mooney, Nemaha; and two sisters-in-law, Dorothy (Ed ) Rosburg, Kiowa, Colo., and Elaine Rosburg, Lincoln, Neb.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Marvin and Ruth Mooney; her husband, Victor, in 2014; and father- and mother-in-law, Stanley and Bessie Novak.
Donna Eileen Mooney was born Jan. 27, 1931, in Nemaha, Iowa, the daughter of Marvin and Ruth Parker Mooney. She graduated from Nemaha High School in 1949 and attended Buena Vista College. She graduated with her teaching degree.
Donna married Victor Novak on Aug. 1, 1953, at the Fort Benning Chapel in Fort Benning, Ga. The couple returned to Early and farmed for several years. She taught at schools in Rockwell City and Aurelia. They later moved to Toledo, where Donna taught at the Toledo Juvenile Home. Victor worked with the USDA which took them to Jonesburg, Mo., and later to Des Moines, where Donna worked at A.G. Edwards. She continued to work for them when the couple moved to McAllen, Texas. In 2005, they returned to Iowa and lived in Martelle until 2009, when they moved to Anamosa.
She loved to play bridge and to watch sports, preferring the Anamosa boys and girls teams and both the men's and women's Hawkeye basketball teams.
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