Sharon Isenhower, 82
Sharon Isenhower age 82 of Fredericksburg, IA, died Thursday, January 27, 2022, at her home surrounded by her family.
Funeral Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, February 1, 2022, at Hillcrest Baptist & Brethren Church in Fredericksburg with Rev. Scott Smith presiding.
Interment will be held in Rose Hill Cemetery, Fredericksburg with Joel Martin, Ben Benter, Jordan Doubek, Roy Speicher, Avery Sassman, and Luke Mumford serving as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers are, Nick Rieck, Tristian Rempel, Andrew Martin, Andria Flack, Brayden Sanderson, and numerous foster children.
Friends may greet the family from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. Monday, January 31, 2022, at Hugeback - Johnson Funeral Home & Crematory in Fredericksburg. Visitation continues an hour prior to the service a the church on Tuesday.
Sharon’s remarkable life — one defined by a giving heart — began on Sept. 9, 1939, when she was born to Milton and Dorothy (Slick) Grummitt in New Hampton.
She grew up in Fredericksburg with her three sisters and one brother and attended Fredericksburg High School, where she played 6-on-6 basketball and was the majorette in the band.
Sharon married Richard Martin, and the couple had six children — Dennis, Ken, Bill, Connie, John, and Cori — who had a mother who had so many talents. She was a mason, a painter, a crafter, and a seamstress who was incredibly creative. She faced plenty of adversity in her life — her first husband died at a young age, two of her children passed away, and she battled cancer valiantly on and off for more than 30 years — but she always did so with deep faith and willingness to put up a good fight.
After Richard passed away, she married Dave Isenhower. They were the first couple to ever exchange vows at the new Hillcrest Baptist and Brethren Church building when they were married on April 16, 1976, and began a wonderful life together that would last for almost 46 years.
Early in her life, she worked as a waitress and in a rest home before she put herself through cosmetology school which led her to open her own beauty shop, Hair by Shar. In the 1970s, she went to work for John Rich, who started the Chickasaw Ambulance Service, and she became one of the first paramedics to work in the county. In 1983, she became a dispatcher at the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Office.
In 1989, the year she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, she felt God’s calling, and she and David became foster parents. For more than 20 years, they fostered several hundred children, and almost all of them saw Sharon as much more than a foster mother; instead, she was their loving grandmother, their “Mima,” and she helped put many of them on the right path by giving them her love, taking them to church and partaking in countless rounds of “Bible quizzing.”
When she and David “retired” as foster parents in 2012, she worked at the Treasure Chest in New Hampton, and she looked forward to her Tuesday afternoon shifts every week.
Sharon took great pride in the Isenhower’s home located south of the Fredericksburg Sportsman’s Club. She designed and created the family’s fireplace, and her kids will always remember the countless trips to rock piles around the area they took as mom searched for the perfect rocks for her fireplace.
She loved being a mother absolutely adored being a grandmother to her 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She was, in short, the best “Mima” a child could have.
Sharon was a member of Hillcrest Baptist and Brethren Church, and it was her deep faith that sustained her in a long and courageous battle with cancer that began so many years ago.
She was a practical woman, and her husband will tell you that she appreciated the gift of a skill saw much more than a vase full of flowers.
Sharon had a heart of gold, one that she showed in so many ways for so many years. As a wife, as a mother, as a paramedic, as a foster mother, as a grandmother, and as a great-grandmother, she always put others before herself and she will be greatly missed. But that faith, that belief in the Lord, tells us she is home with God today.
Sharon is survived by her husband, Dave of Fredericksburg, three sons, John (Katy), Dennis and Bill, all of Fredericksburg, a daughter, Connie (Keith) of Fredericksburg; 13 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren; two sisters, Randa of Maynard, and Brenda (David) of Fredericksburg; sister-in-law, Janice of Allision; and brother-in-law, Bill of Fredericksburg.
She was preceded in death by her parents; in-laws; step-dad, Mike; daughter, Cori; son, Kenneth; and granddaughter, Samantha; sister, Karla; brother, Lurton.
