Funeral services for Leona Thilges-Kunz were held on Wednesday, June 3 at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Estherville, Iowa. She was laid to rest at Riverside Cemetery in Jackson, Minnesota.
Leona Vivian (Eickhoff) Thilges-Kunz of Estherville, Iowa died May 29, 2026, at Estherville Community Care Center. She was born August 3, 1930, in Truman, Minnesota, the daughter of Charles and Mary (Harder) Eickhoff.
Leona spoke fondly of growing up on a Minnesota farm and attending the Truman Country School. She told tales of walking 3 miles to school or riding in the horse drawn sleigh driven by her father to “collect” the area children and the teacher for school when the snow was deep.
The farm work ethic that Leona grew up with guided her through her adult life. She worked as a cook at the Sirloin House in Fairmont in the 1960s then owned and operated the State Line Store south of Fairmont for several years. Perhaps the work she found the most fulfilling was her management position at Sunrise Apartments in Jackson, MN and Emmetsburg, Iowa. She enjoyed the many challenges of getting to know and tending to the needs of the apartment renters as well as the secretarial and financial skills needed to keep track of accounts. Leona had a keen sense of math and would easily solve math problems without pencil and paper.
Leona was preceded in death by her parents, four brothers and four sisters and her four husbands, Laurence Schultz, Richard Johnson, Norbert Thilges, and Richard Kunz.
She is survived by her four children, Michael (Martha) Schultz, Chester Schultz, Sharon (Gary) Riley and Dean (Linda) Schultz. Also surviving are six grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.
