Emma Caroline Sager, age 71, of Ogilvie died January 14, 2012 at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul.Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. Saturday, January 21st at Faith Lutheran Church in Isanti with Pastor Clifton Hanson officiating. A visitation will be held from Noon until the service Saturday at the church.
Emma Caroline Sager was born at the family’s rural Brazil, Iowa home on March 23, 1940 to John and Etta (Burgess) Sackfield. She grew up in the Brazil-Centerville area and attended a one room grade school with her sister as her teacher. Emma was spelling bee champion and the valedictorian of her class at Centerville High School in 1958. She moved to the Oxlip area in Isanti County, Minnesota where she raised her four children. Emma worked as a bank teller then as a bookkeeper at Bar None Ranch. During this time, she earned her accounting degree. She ended her career working for Isanti County and has been there for the last 18 years.
She was a very adventurous person and enjoyed taking her kids to a remote northern Minnesota cabin and taking mountain hikes at Homestead Meadows in Colorado with her sister. She also tracked wolves in Northern MN, chased bears from her porch, and slept next to Mountain Lions. Emma loved the rustic cabin near her daughter Carolyn’s home in rural Cambridge and her Ogilvie Log Home of the last eight year. She enjoyed cooking, snowshoeing, reading and gardening. Her true passion, however, was her family. She spent each day with family and especially liked going to the grandkids activities and having them stay with her.
Emma Sager died January 14, 2012 at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul at the age of 71 years, 9 months and 21 days. She was preceded in death by her parents, one brother, Raymond Sackfield, and one sister, Margaret Thomas.
Emma will be lovingly remembered by her four children, Marie Sager of Ogilvie, Ron (Julie) Sager of Ham Lake, Nancy (Bill) Spooner of St. Michael, and Carolyn (Ernie) O’Neill of Princeton; one brother, Jim Sackfield of Varna, Illinois; three sisters, Della (Richard) Pribnow of Maplewood, Elsie (Bob) Charlton of Minneapolis, and Pixie (Wayne) Long of Longmount, Colorado; 16 grandchildren, Erin (Jason) Mrozek, Jennifer (Dusty) Lindner, Jason Findell, Michelle, Hannah and Bruce Stahnke, Mike and Brian Sager, Kyle Redberg, Rachel Sager, Brandi, Serina and Jimmy Spooner, Nicole Klapak, and Jocelyn and Reanna O’Neill; four great-grandchildren, Baylee, Noah, Parker and Tyler; and by many other’s who called her Mom or Grandma as well as relatives and friends.
Marie, Carolyn, Ron, Nancy and families,
Please know our deepest sympathies are being sent to you on the passing of your mom. You are and will continue to be in our thoughts and prayers through this difficult time. Continue to hold each other close and keep your mom’s love alive in your lives.
Louise and Alan
I am so sorry for your loss. You you find peace and comfort knowing she’s no longer in pain, and is in very good company with those before her and Our Father! God Bless!
(I’ve worked/friend with Julie Sager for many years!)
My thoughts and prayers go out to your family. I have known Emma for several years from working with her at Isanti County. I did not work for the county but worked at the county several times a week. Emma was an amazing, careing, knowledgeable person! She will be greatly missed.
I would like to extend my sympathy to Emma’s family. I was a classmate of Emma’s at Centerville High School. I too was a product of a one room country school. Your mother was a brilliant student, which you already know. We were friends in high school I think, because we both were quiet students. I know your cousin Mike Thomas and his wife Joyce.
Wishing to express my deepest sympathy and prayers to all of Emma’s family, I send this note. This is my remembrance gift to her four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren–to each of you, including her siblings.
My friendship with Emma goes back to grade school and our high school days. I enjoyed spending a lot of time with Emma and her sister, Pixie, in our small rural Iowa community, We read books and wanted to be as adventurous as the characters in the books. We continued our friendship through high school and corresponded occasionally over the following years.
Emma loved her cabin home and being near the animals and the “wilderness” of Northern Minnesota. Am also happy that she was able to come to Iowa for our 2008 Centerville High School Class Reunion. I enjoyed hearing of her achievements with her career and to find that she was still working as she enjoyed her job. Emma also loved spending lots of time with her family.
Believing she is now in her eternal rest. She may be renewing friendships of those who already passed. I can see her venturing through heaven searching for long-gone friends, relatives and teachers, too.
Emma was a special person who used her intelligence for her own good or to help others. Never would she embarrass anyone. She was a wonderful kindred spirit.