A memorial service for Verda Belle Gunnarson will be held Friday, Jan. 3, at 2 p.m. at the Ranfranz Funeral Home Chapel in Rochester. The Rev. Linda Heiberg will officiate. Mrs. Gunnarson, age 84, a resident of Meadow Lakes Senior Living in Rochester, died Monday, Dec. 30, 2002, at Meadow Lakes Senior Living. Visitation will be 1-2 p.m. Friday at the funeral home. Interment at a cemetery in Marathon, Iowa, will occur in Spring 2003.

Verda Belle Watts was born Feb. 22, 1918, in Marathon, Iowa, the daughter of Virgil and Pearl (nee Crone) Watts. Raised in Marathon, she was a graduate of the public schools there. She moved to Rochester and began nurse’s training. She married Ivan Brown and was later divorced. In 1949 she married Arthur Gunnarson. From 1949 until their retirement in the late 1970s the Gunnarsons farmed near Hayward. In retirement, they lived in Mesa, Ariz., Marathon, Iowa, Albert Lea and Rochester. Mrs. Gunnarson was a member of the Hayward Lutheran Church in Hayward, and while living there remained active in church activities serving as a Sunday School teacher and on church circles.

She is survived by her husband, Arthur Gunnarson, of Rochester; sons: Loren Kent Brown and his wife, Margie, of Wyoming, Minn., Randall Brown of Rochester, and John Gunnarson of Lakeland, Fla.; a daughter, Nancy Strayer and her husband, Dan, of Georgetown, Texas; 11 grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren, a brother, Gerald Watts and his wife, Vonnie, of Marathon, Iowa; and a sister, Maxine Studelska of Mesa, Ariz.

She was preceded in death by her parents; a son, Russell Brown; and a grandson, Troy Brown.