Janeth Peterseim probably knew more about death than most of us. Having spent the better part of her life in the funeral home business, she knew it inside out.

“The thing I miss most is just being with the people,” she told The News in July 2023, then 87 years old and retired. “There are many times when we have visitation, and I’m out here [in the residence]. But if it’s a family that I know real well, that we’ve done so many services for the family, then I just have to go in and be with them at some point and visit with them again.”

Born in Williamsburg and raised in Tipton, as a young person Jan didn’t foresee her life in Kalona. She worked in Cedar Rapids and she enjoyed it. But she also enjoyed being married to Short Peterseim, and when his parents needed to pass the funeral home business to him in 1963, moving to Kalona was a given.

Even though she dragged her feet, Kalona turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

“The community was really very good to me,” she said. “Everybody accepted me pretty much.”

Over the years, Jan became highly involved in Kalona life. She was the force behind the first Kalona booth at the Iowa State Fair, setting up an Amish buggy and gathering enough oats to build a shock, then handing out samples of bread and cheese. She worked at the Kalona Chamber of Commerce and volunteered with the Kalona Historical Society. She helped raise over $100,000 for Hospice of Washington County through the annual Short Peterseim Memorial Golf Tournament.

“It’s important to me because I feel like I’m doing something and that I’m helping people,” she said. “I love to be with people. So far as becoming involved, it was just like, you’re kind of in the public eye, so you better act nice. Treat people like you want to be treated.”

Over time, her volunteer work “kind of evolved into things I had an interest in.”

Jan was proud of her family and business, something you could sense in her excitement over the new Wahl Museum Streetscape at the Kalona Historical Village, where the Peterseim undertaking business features prominently. She was proud that daughter Meg Nagel is now an owner of Beatty & Peterseim Funeral Services, carrying forward that legacy. She was proud that they “were able to serve the community in a professional way, and the community feels that we’re doing a good job.”

She was funny and she liked to have fun. She appreciated that funerals had shifted from mournful affairs to more spirited parties that could be held almost anywhere.

“I really liked the personalization of the service so that people can really get to know you. They know you, but there are a lot of things that they don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes the friends are closer to the person than the family is, and the things that they share – the family never even had any idea about what that person was to somebody else . . . They start telling stories about them and then you know, if it’s not some really somber type of thing, the people get laughing and the stories are pretty hilarious.”

Jan probably thought more about her own funeral than most of us do. She knew she wanted us to celebrate her life and share our stories about her.

Now we have the opportunity.