Therese M. Reicher

DYERSVILLE, IOWA

With her rosary firmly entwined in her hands, Therese Mary Reicher, 98, passed from this earth April 3, 2025, to be reunited with her beloved husband Ray and daughter Miriam.

Visitation will be held from 5 – 7:30 p.m., along with a memorial service beginning at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at Kramer-Morris Funeral Home in Dyersville, Iowa. Visitation will continue Wednesday morning from 9 - 10 a.m. at Kramer-Morris Funeral Home prior to funeral services.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, at St. Francis Xavier Basilica in Dyersville, Iowa, with burial following in the church cemetery. Rev. Chris Podhajsky will officiate.

Therese was born Jan. 4, 1927, to John G. and Margaret (Mayer) Tegeler in Minneapolis, MN. The family moved back to Iowa, settling in the Dundee area to farm. When high school loomed, Therese and her younger brother John boarded with relatives in Dyersville so they could attend St. Francis Xavier Catholic school there.

Following graduation, she attended teacher’s training at the University of Dubuque and began teaching as an 18-year-old in a one room school near Manchester, where the family had recently moved. In the next year or so, she met Ray Reicher at a dance at Melody Mill in Dubuque, embarking on their future both on and off the dance floor, May 29, 1948, in a double wedding ceremony with her sister Beth and Joe Hoffman. The young couple honeymooned in Ray’s brand-new Studebaker convertible through the western states for three weeks before returning to Dyersville, where he ran Steve and Ray’s Tavern with his brother Steve.

Therese settled into homemaking and the couple decided, after four children had been born, that a bar was no place to raise a family. Torn between opening a florist shop and shoe store, they traveled to the shoe show in Des Moines and were warned off that venture, told they would lose everything. They only became more determined to prove the naysayers wrong and opened Reicher Shoes, a main street business that just celebrated 70 years in March of 2025.

Ray had also fallen in love with the game of golf during service in WW II and taught Therese to play, another beginning for the couple as they became fixtures, with their children, on the course at the Dyersville Country Club. It was there Therese eventually won the ladies club championship 4 times, the last just days before her eighth child, Zachary, was born. Their love of the game also transferred to the next generations and they spent many hours watching their grandchildren play the game in high school and with the Simpson College golf teams.

When their children were old enough, Therese spent Saturdays at the shoe store. Later she joined Ray as members of the original Beckman Endowment Fund as they recorded all the pledges and payments used to develop that fund to keep the high school open and functioning. All eight of their children graduated from Beckman and they continued to support the school fully, taking charge of the Tractor Sales initiated by Scale Models and joined their daughter Bec and her husband Ric in recording, plating, boxing and mailing all tractors in that fundraiser for three years.

Just before Ray passed away, they decided to move from their tree farm south of Dyersville to town and found the little house across from church. The family moved them to that house the same weekend her daughter Miriam died in Chicago, keeping Therese from overseeing the move. But, despite her protests, it became the best that ever happened, as Ray passed in 2009 and she was able to walk just steps across the street for all church activities, a big part of her later years. She sang in the regular Xavier Choir for years until it disbanded and then joined the Resurrection Choir, never missing a funeral service. Her faith was extremely important to her and an integral part of her life.

She was preceded in death by Ray and Miriam (Reicher) Norton, her parents, her siblings: George, Beth, Bill and John; her in-laws: Esther (Joe)Tauke, Steve (LuAnn) Reicher, Grace (Frank) Fincel, Jane (Keith)Loebsack and Mary Ellen (Don) Lakeman; a great-grand daughter, Ainsley Koch.

She is survived by her children: Bec (Ric) Willenborg, Dyersville, Marty (Jerry)Weydert, Asbury, Chris (Patty) Reicher, St. Cloud, MN., Sarah (Tom) Muntz, St. Croix Falls, WI., Rachel (Mike) Gooder, Cresco, Don (Beth) Norton, Chicago, Ted (Ann) Reicher, Davenport, Zac (Kim) Reicher, Boseman, MT.; grandchildren: Leah (Brad) Miller, Seth (Lily) Willenborg, Hannah (Luke) Wickham, Senta (Adam) Pritchard, Emily Kerr, Greg (Gigi) Weydert, Courtney (Andrew) Hensen, Allison (the late Ted) Taber, Zebedee Reicher, Ella (Dylan) Tischer, Noelle (Brian) Koch, Renae Davison, Abby (Dan) Inglis, John (Molly) Gooder, Jake (Kelly) Norton, Katie (fiancé Colin Baker) Norton; 28 great-grandchildren: Amelia, Raelin and Ethan Miller, Kayley, Sam and Adelyn Willenborg, Sagers and Reicher Wickham, Gibson, Becca and Deacon Pritchard, Austin and Adrianna Kerr, Michael, Brenna and Lexie Weydert, Kara and Oliver Tischer, Hailey and Wesley Koch, Allyse and Jared Davison, Wyatt, Rosie and Eli Inglis, Ella, Mara and Nora Gooder; sister-in-law, Kay Tegeler; numerous nieces and nephews.

Please send memorials to Beckman High School or St. Francis Xavier Basilica.

Therese leaves us with this thought, found in her papers: “To those who love us, love us. To those who don’t, may God turn their hearts, but if He can’t, may He turn their ankles so we can tell them by their limp.”

Kramer-Morris Funeral Home in Dyersville is assisting the family. Information is available at https://www.kramer-morrisfuneralhome.com.