Arleen Linngren

Arleen Linngren, 94, of Rapid City died Monday, March 16, 2020, after a long battle with heart failure. She was a former Strandburg area resident.

Graveside services will be held on Monday, August 2, 2021, at 10:30 a.m. at Bethel Baptist Cemetery, Strandburg, SD. All friends and relatives are invited to attend .

Arleen was born September 18, 1925, to George and Eva (Brandt) Hinrichs in Claremont. She was raised on the family farm and attended schools in Claremont and Amherst where she was an excellent student and participated in many extracurricular activities, including chorus, band, cheerleading and sports.

She was an excellent singer, and was encouraged by her teachers to pursue a singing career. Instead she sang for weddings, funerals and with a women’s trio at her church.

She met her future husband, Willard Andrews, on her parents’ farm when he was a member of a threshing crew. They married in 1943, and moved to a farm by Britton.

Eventually they sold the farm and moved to Aberdeen where Willard went to work for Game, Fish and Parks as a park warden. The job took them from Aberdeen to Hot Springs where Arleen went to work at the First National Bank of the Black Hills.

Willard and Arleen made one final move together to Hartford Beach on Big Stone Lake, where Willard died of sudden cardiac death. With this move, Arleen had also transferred jobs to the First National Bank in Milbank.

It was at the bank where she met Maynard Linngren, a native of Grant County. He convinced her that it was time for her to retire, so they got married and traveled the world.  Maynard was close to retirement himself, but his job with International Diamond took them many places she had always wanted to see, including the Holy Land. They made their headquarters in the Bay Area of northern California with a weekend home in the Danish community of Solvang. Eventually they retired to a small farm in Strandburg where they lived together until Maynard’s death from leukemia.

As Arleen’s health started to decline, she moved to southern California for 10 years with one of her daughters. Her final move was to an assisted living facility in Rapid City near two of her children.

During her early married years, she and her husband, Willard, were active in Masons and Eastern Star as well as square dancing, round dancing, ice dancing and roller skating. They were both active in the music ministry of the Zion Reformed Church in Amherst before moving to Britton where Arleen taught kindergarten Sunday school. She also taught Sunday school at the United Churches in Hot Springs.

The first thing Arleen would do with each move during her lifetime would be to find her church and her library.

Another of Arleen’s great talents was gardening. She raised large vegetable gardens during the years the family farmed and spent many weeks canning and preserving food for the family.

Arleen is survived by Wayne (Sonia) Andrews, Cheryl Lee Andrews, Lana (Jerry) Wraa, Valerie Andrews (Steve McBride), Holly Andrews (Paul Felenczak) Jill (Mike) Greenlee, Cara (Bob) Brokofsky, Bruce (Michelle) Andrews, Maurena Andrews, Steve (Diane) Linngren, John (Greg Breiseth) Linngren; 18 grandchildren; 25 great grandchildren; seven great-great grandchildren, many step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren.

Arleen was preceded in death by her parents, husbands, sister, and all of her classmates and contemporaries. She was the last of her generation on both sides of the family