Elna Meyer

Elna Meyer, 97, of Latimer, passed away on Friday, February 27, 2026, at the Rehabilitation Center of Hampton. Funeral services are pending with the Sietsema-Atkinson Funeral Home in Hampton. 

Elna Mae Davidsen Meyer was born in Latimer, Iowa, on July 27, 1928 to Peter Davidsen and Hannah (nee Jorgensen) Davidsen. She attended Latimer Elementary and High Schools and is a graduate of North Iowa Area Community College.

She married Ivan Meyer of rural Latimer on Sept. 8, 1945 and moved to the family Century Farm north of Latimer, where she lived for 75 years. They had three children: Gene, Loraine and Eric. She also hosted grandsons Sean and Lucas for many childhood summers at the farm. In addition, she enjoyed a special relationship with her niece Sharon Freie Parks, and her grandnieces who also lived on the farm site, and their families.

She enjoyed knitting, sewing, home decorating and horseback riding.. She was a voracious lifelong reader, particularly of books on history. She enjoyed learning languages, particularly Danish and German, which she used to pursue a passion for compiling family genealogies. She loved music, played the piano, and encouraged her children to develop their own musical interests too. She relished family reunions, church and community celebrations and holiday parties at the farm.

She loved to travel. She and Ivan took what was her first cross-country drive to Washington, D.C. - a honeymoon trip seven years after they married. She and Ivan continued to travel throughout their lives, camping with children or grandchildren throughout the Midwest and from coast to coast. Elna also traveled to Europe, particularly enjoying Denmark and Germany with their ties to family genealogy.

Elna did bookkeeping for the family farm, worked as a paraprofessional librarian in the CAL Community Schools and was a secretary and mediator with the Iowa Mediation Service. She also was church secretary at Zion Reformed Church, Sheffield.

She is survived by her children and children-in-law Gene and Jan Meyer of Overland Park Kansas; Loraine Stiles and Edward Stiles of Tours, France, and Eric Meyer of Longmont and his former wife Martha Rosner of Boulder, both in Colorado. She also is survived by two grandsons, Sean (Chris) Meyer of Lenexa, Kansas and Lucas Meyer of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She also leaves behind a niece, Sharon Freie Parks of Hampton; two nephews, Keith (Nancy) Freie of Hampton and Curtis (Shellie) Freie of Sheffield and their families.

Elna was preceded in death by her husband, Ivan, in 2011; by an infant brother Robert Davidsen, by her sister Jeanette Freie and brother-in-law Glenn Freie; by her brother-in-law Ervin Meyer and sister-in-law Margaret Meyer, her nephew Lawrence Meyer and niece Marianne Armento, and by her niece Carol Borcherding.