Welker
Winterset
Anna May Franks was born Nov. 17, 1936, in Osceola to Roy Earl Franks, Sr. and Mary Kathryn (Martin) Franks, and passed from this life May 20, 2026, at Winterset.
Anna started school at the age of 4 attending country schools in Clarke County. Upon entering high school, Anna moved to Osceola to live with her grandparents, Harley Benjamin and Elizabeth Marie Martin, as there were no buses to bring the country kids to town.
After graduating high school at the age of 17, Anna moved to Iowa City and worked for Children Services. She returned to Osceola and was married to James Dwaine Webb on June 28, 1955, in Kansas City, Missouri. They started their marriage at the Marine Corps Base Camp Le-Jeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, returning back to Clarke County in early 1956. Their marriage was blessed with two children: Kenneth Martin and Rebecca Anne.
Anna went to work in the early 60s as an office assistant in the Farm Bureau office. While working there she built up quite a reputation writing a weekly column called “A Line From Anne” which was about the ups and downs of being a farm wife and raising two kids. In 1978, the farming community was doing well and she was able to retire to help out on the farm since both kids were grown and gone from home and no longer there to help. When farming crashed in 1980, she went back to work in Des Moines for a temp agency finally ending up working in the Des Moines School District as a secretary. After being there for a few years, she went to work at Principal Financial Group where she completed her working career and retired in the early 2000s. She then worked part-time for Fons & Porter in their quilt shop, not because she needed too, but because she loved being there.
On Oct. 24, 1993, Anna found love again and married Dwaine Dean Welker in Fort Dodge. Over the years, she was very active in the community being a Boy Scout Den Mother, doing a term on the Clarke Community School Board, volunteered with the Iowa Soybean Association, was on the Clarke County Reservoir Commission and was a board member of SIRWA for a total of 20 years.
There wasn’t anything Anne couldn’t do. She did leather work making many billfolds, checkbook covers, purses and other things all given as gifts. She crocheted and knitted many afghans along with doilies over the years, also given as gifts. Her knitted Christmas stockings became quite famous and expected in her extended family, always giving them as gifts. She made well over 100 in her lifetime. She made all of her clothes, Jim’s shirts and her children’s clothes until they started junior high. But her greatest love - later in life - was making and awarding Quilts of Valor to the veterans.
Preceding her in death are her parents, first husband Jim, son Kenny, second husband Dwaine, brother and sister-in-law Roy Earl Franks, Jr. and Dwan, sister-in-law Wilma and husband Larry Helms, brother-in-law John Webb and wife Betty and sister- in-law Lola and husband Everette Carson.
Surviving are daughter Becky (Kevin) Rodgers of Williamstown, Missouri; grandchildren: Jennifer Nicole (David) Snead of Kahoka, Missouri, Jessica Reed, K. Eric Rodgers (Kristina) of Williamstown and Joshua James Webb of Indianola; great-grandchildren: K. Blake, Jenna Kaye and Kamden Marcus Rodgers of Williamstown and Makenna Diane Snead of Kahoka; family- by-choice granddaughter Jessica (Drew) Sparks Goffinet and great-grandchildren Brady and Sophia Goffinet of Raymore, Missouri.
Services were held at Kale Funeral Home - Osceola, Tuesday, May 26 at 11 a.m. with Pastor Marty Burgus officiating with the family greeting friends at a visitation one hour prior to services.
A livestream of the service ia available at www.kalefuneralhome. com on Anna’s tribute wall. Interment was in the Maple Hill Cemetery in Osceola.
Memorial contributions may be directed to Clarke County Historical Society or Ottawa Cemetery.
Online condolences may be directed to the family at www. kalefuneralhome.com.
