Irma Jean Kluge Schwarze, 86
Irma Jean Kluge Schwarze, 86, died August 12th, 2024, from complications following hip surgery at St Alphonsus Hospital in Boise.
Irma was born on January 19th, 1938, to Charles and Violet Smith Kluge in Madrid, Nebraska. She was the middle child of three children. Irma’s childhood was challenging as her mother moved when she and her siblings were in middle school.
They stayed on the childhood farm with their father, who died a short while later from cancer.
The kids were then taken in by neighbors Irvin and Leota Flaming, who saw them through high school. Irma graduated from Madrid High School in 1956.
Irma went to University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, and graduated with a B. Sci in education in 1960. Irma had always said that she and her best friend from college wanted to teach someplace different than Nebraska. They both ended up with teaching positions for the Las Vegas, New Mexico school system. Irma taught elementary school in Las Vegas, New Mexico for a year.
After a year, she followed her best friend to Boise, Idaho with her teaching colleague who had a job lined up.
Instead of teaching, Irma decided to go to secretarial school in Boise.
While going to school she met David Schwarze, a handsome geologist who was working for Simplot Company in Boise. They married on August 24, 1962, in Boise. Shortly thereafter the young couple moved to Conda, Idaho, where David worked at the Simplot Phosphate Mine.
They had two sons. From there they lived in Soda Springs, and Idaho Falls, until finally, they moved to Boise in 1975 where they remained.
Although Irma stayed home to raise her children, she continued to run her father’s farm from a distance, overseeing the care, maintenance, and sale of crops. She did this until her 86th year.
Irma was warm, kind and generous with all her family both with her money and time.
Her homemade bread and apricot nut cookies were famous amongst her family members and neighbors. Family could always look forward to a fresh homecooked meal and a friendly warm place to stay.
Irma spent her later years caring for Dave, as his dementia progressed.
A petite woman, Irma demonstrated incredible strength caring for Dave at home while dementia gradually took his mind and eventually his body.
We wish that she could have enjoyed her golden years a little while longer after the stress of losing Dave.
We love you Irma and are forever grateful for the values you passed to each of us- generosity, love of cooking, good food and drinks,close family bonds, hard work, strength, forgiveness, financial responsibility, and cared for those around us.
She is survived by sons, Tim (Julie) Schwarze of Bozeman, Montana, and Eric (Nathally) Schwarze of Nampa, Idaho, 3 grandchildren, Cale, Jack and Ira; 4 great grandchildren, two half-sisters, Patricia Allen of Mission Viejo, California, Pamela Garcia of San Leandro, California and numerous nieces and nephews.
She is preceded in death by her father, Charles F. Kluge; her mother Violet K. Smith Hammond; her sister Joan Kluge Nicoletti and her brother, Kenneth Kluge.