Jeannie Kuster
  • Born on: November 20, 1941
  • Departed on: May 17, 2023
  • Resided in: West Burlington, IA

Jeannie Kuster

Jeannie Kuster, beloved wife of Tom, passed away in the Klein Center in West Burlington, Iowa, at 1:42 a.m. on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Her husband, her daughter Beth and her younger sisters Kim and Jackie were by her side when she took her last breath. Her cremation was entrusted to Iowa Cremation in Cedar Rapids. 

A celebration of Jeannie’s life will take place at First Christian Church on Park Avenue in Burlington on Saturday, August 26, 2023, at 11:00 a.m., with food and fellowship to follow at the church. In the meantime, please plan to visit Jeannie’s memorial bench, which will be installed near the gazebo in Perkins Park sometime this summer.

Born Claudette Jean Brown on November 20, 1941, in Leon, Iowa, Jeannie was the daughter of Claude and Bernice (Baker) Brown. She married Thomas Kuster at Grace Methodist Church in Burlington on February 18, 1962. 

As the oldest of 10 girls, Jeannie was a loving mother to not only her own two daughters, Tamara (Washington, Iowa) and Elizabeth (Brooklyn, New York), but also to many of her younger sisters. A tomboy as a child, she liked to climb trees and peek into birds’ nests. She grew up in poverty in a house without indoor plumbing or running water.  Ever practical, she started grocery shopping for her family at age 7, pulling her wagon to the grocery store in Leon and buying as much food as she could with the money her mom gave her. At age 8, she walked into church in Leon all by herself and demanded to be baptized. She bought a life insurance policy at age 12 when she realized that her parents couldn’t afford to bury her if she died.

Jeannie was bubbly, kind, honest, considerate, gracious, conscientious, fun and funny. Whenever Hot Butter’s “Popcorn Song” came on the radio in the 1970s, she would gently brake in time to the beat, making the car “dance” — and her little girls shout with laughter. She once astonished her family by breaking into a tap-dance routine; turned out, she had learned how to tap as a kid by watching her best friend’s lessons through the window. 

Jeannie was talented, hard-working, reliable, loyal and logical. She could and did fix almost anything. She led by example and was a mentor to many. She loved life, and handled everything life threw at her with great confidence and ease.

Jeannie was a drum majorette at Leon High School; after her family moved to Burlington, she became a member of the National Honor Society at Burlington High School, where she won the Sylvania Secretarial Award. She graduated from BHS in 1960, then worked as a legal secretary for Hirsch, Riepe & Wright in Burlington until 1963. She sold Avon in Peoria, Illinois, for a few years in the 1960s and ’70s, and was very successful at it because she loved the products and was so gorgeous, glamorous, elegant and stylish herself. She was especially obsessed with nail polish and had dozens of bottles. 

From 1974 to 1984, Jeannie was executive secretary and bookkeeper for Orville E. Kelly, founder of the nonprofit organizations Make Today Count and the National Association of Atomic Veterans (NAAV). A skilled stenographer, she took excellent shorthand and had expert knowledge of office management. She typed and proofread Orville’s two successful nonfiction books, Make Today Count (Delacorte Press) and Until Tomorrow Comes (Everest House), and also wrote and edited the NAAV newsletters. In 1985, she became a licensed life and health insurance agent, with clients in Iowa and Illinois.

Most Friday and Saturday nights of their marriage, she and Tom would hit the local hotspots and dance the night away. She had a great sense of rhythm and loved a good beat. To listen to Jeannie’s favorite dance tunes, check out the Spotify playlist “Boogie with Jeannie!” by visiting https://tinyurl.com/5n6e6e5t 

Jeannie loved interior decorating and was constantly rearranging her home. She loved taking care of her yard, too, and called it her “Garden of Eden.” She enjoyed fishing and being in nature, and fed thousands of squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, raccoons, butterflies and birds over the years. (Hummingbirds were her favorite.)  

Jeannie also enjoyed traveling around the U.S. (especially New York and California), reading and playing word games, card games and Bingo. A passionate bridge player, she played duplicate bridge with the Mississippi River Bridge Gang for decades. She made fabulous fried chicken, rabbit gravy, potato soup and barbecue spare ribs.

On June 26, 2003, Jeannie’s tire blew on Burlington Hill in Fort Madison and she collided with a truck head-on. She suffered a traumatic brain injury in the wreck, along with a severed portal vein, two severed arteries, broken ribs, collapsed lungs, a shattered elbow, fractured ankle and injured colon. She literally bled to death and was resuscitated 7 times. At one point she stopped breathing for 5 minutes. Jeannie had to be cut out of her car and airlifted to Iowa City, where she was comatose for several days, then hospitalized for 10 weeks. At first, she didn’t recognize her husband, her daughters or even herself. She didn’t remember the months of the year, the days of the week or how to walk. Her healing process took months, but was truly miraculous to see.

Incredibly, Jeannie’s brilliant mind eventually regained its sharpness: In 2014, an astounding 11 years after her brain was permanently injured in the car crash, she received her Gold Life Master Certificate from the American Contract Bridge League. 

She felt closer to God after the accident, telling a Hawk Eye reporter in 2003, “I am the Lord’s saved person. All I’ve done is pray and thank Jesus for saving me.” She and Tom became members of First Christian Church; for several years, the two of them visited fellow church members in area nursing homes. Jeannie’s family is so grateful that they had her for those 20 extra years.

In addition to her husband and two daughters, Jeannie is survived by her sisters Jaye Taylor, of Santa Barbara, California; Debbie Dotson, of Dickson, Tennessee; Claudia Rehman, Tina Brown, Kimberly Kienast and Jackie Brown, all of Burlington; and dozens of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. She is also survived by many in-laws she loved dearly: Gerry Kuster, Sherry Kuster, Dennis and Joyce Kuster, Karen and Larry Eickmann, Jan and Frank Hennenfent, Debbie Eastburn and Linda Kuster.

Jeannie was preceded in death by her parents, her sisters Marilyn Pilgram, Dianna Dickinson and Linda Seitz, and many adored friends and in-laws.

In lieu of flowers, consider making a donation in Jeannie’s name to First Christian Church or the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Diversity Program, which works to protect the beautiful native butterflies and birds that Jeannie loved so much: https://programs.iowadnr.gov/donations/Donation/Add/4 .

 
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