Person:Minita Gentz (1)

Minita Oppendike

Minita R. Oppendike, 87, of Prophetstown, died July 14, 2006, at Prophets Riverview Good Samaritan Center, Prophetstown.

Services are 11 a.m. Tuesday at Advent Christian Church, Prophetstown. Burial is in Riverside Cemetery. Visitation is 9:30 a.m. to services. Arrangements are by Gibson & Son, Prophetstown.

Minita was born Aug. 6, 1918, in Peoria, Ill. She married Millard Oppendike Aug. 26, 1937, in Clinton, Iowa. He died in 1965.

She and her husband ran a fishing resort in Wisconsin before moving to Prophetstown.

She is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Neil and Jana Oppendike, Prophetstown; two grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; a sister, Bernice Brown, Topeka, Kan.; and brothers John Gentz, Morrison, and Clarence Gentz, Rockford, Ill.

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by Phil Hartman, Gazette Reporter, July 17, 2006 Daily Gazette

When Minita Gentz went to the one-room Bluff School near Prophetstown, she never would have guessed that she and her teacher, Agnes Hawkinson, would one day be roommates.

Like almost all of her nine brothers and sisters, Minita was born at home in Peoria. The Gentes moved to the Prophetstown area where she grew up. She moved away and married Millard Oppendike in 1937, and returned to the Prophetstown area, where she and her husband raised their son, Neil.

In her later years, Minita moved into the Prophets Riverview Good Samaritan Center in Prophetstown, and she roomed with her former teacher, now Agnes Weber.

"Minita was sharing a room at the nursing home with her former teacher when she died", Jana Oppendike, Minita's daughter-in-law said.

Minita R. Oppendike died Friday at the Prophets Riverview Good Samaritan Center, Prophetstown. She was 87.

Minita liked spending time with her son and grandchildren, often returning to the water to cast a line. "She liked to fish. She took the grandchildren fishing," Jana said.

Neil Oppendike remembered fishing a lot on vacations with his parents when he was growing up. "We went to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Eventually, they ended up buying a resort. They didn't own it very long. That was back in the 1950's, before snowmobiling and winter sports, so the season was pretty short. I think they owned it two or three years," Neil said.

Afte r moving back to the Prophetstown area, Minita worked as a nurse's aide at Morrison Community Hospital. After Millard's death in 1965, she took a job on the assembly line at the General Electric plant in Morrison. She worked there for 20 years, doing small parts assembly," Jana Oppendike said.