Undated photo of Sara Wolfe Wissing (left) and on her wedding day, October 26, 1957, with husband George Richard "Dick" Wissing (Quad-City Times)
SARA T. WOLFE WISSING (1926–1998)
Sara Terese Wolfe was born on August 2, 1926, in Delmar, Iowa, the daughter of Raymond Bernard Wolfe and Gladys McGinn Wolfe. Her siblings were Mary Kathryn (b. 1929), Margery, and Thomas Anthony (b. 1940). Ray Wolfe was the grandson of Irish immigrants and farmed not quite 200 acres in Clinton County. He died in 1941.
Sara Wolfe attended Mount Saint Clair Academy, in Clinton, then Rosary College, in River Forest, Illinois, before receiving a BA from Marycrest College in Davenport. She earned a masters degree in counseling from Western Illinois University, in Macomb, Illinois.
From bottom left and clockwise: Kate Wissing, Beth Wissing, Brendan Wolfe, John Wissing, and Bridget Wolfe, at the Wissing home in Davenport
She married George Richard "Dick" Wissing, a lawyer originally of Sioux City, Iowa, on October 26, 1957, at Sacred Hearth Cathedral, in Davenport. The couple had four children: Matthew "Matt," Elizabeth "Beth," Catherine "Kate," and John Martin.
Sara Wissing worked as a social worker. She served as director of the Davenport office of Information Referral and Assistance Services and on the boards of the Vera French Mental Health Center, the Vera French Housing Center, the Center for Aging Services Inc., and the Independent Living Center, and as chair of the Iowa State Health Facilities. Late in her life she work as the facilitator of the Single Parent–Displaced Homemaker program at Scott Community College, Eastern Iowa Community College District.
Sara Wolfe Wissing died on October 3, 1998, at Genesis Medical Center–West Campus, in Davenport. Her body was donated to the University of Iowa College of Medicine, in Iowa City, and then interred at Saint Patrick's Cemetery, in Delmar, Iowa.