Patricia E. Arnold

Patricia E. Arnold, 86 years old, of Sioux City, Iowa died March 8, 2023. Funeral Services will be 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 15, 2023 led by Pastor B.J. Van Kalsbeek at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. Visitation will be at 10:30 am, luncheon at 12:30 pm, followed by a graveside service at Graceland Park Cemetery. Live stream of the service may be viewed on the Sunnybrook Community Church YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/live/hknLQ4XlC2A?feature=share. Several grandchildren will serve as pallbearers. Funeral services are provided by Meyer Brothers Morningside Chapel, Sioux City.  

Born in Sioux City, she grew up on farms in South Dakota near Jefferson, Elk Point, and Meckling. Her parents were George and Adelaide Wetmore -- she was the fourth of five children.

At school in Meckling she met her husband of 63 years, Robert W. Arnold. They were married in 1954 in Vermillion, South Dakota, the year she graduated high school. One year later, Bob and Pat drove to California to start a new life, but soon returned and settled down in Sioux City instead. While Bob worked at First National Bank, Pat raised their five young children at home. Later, she also worked at Penneys, selling real estate, and running the Wetmore Declamation Bureau (started by her great-aunts Frankie and Rae Wetmore) for 30 plus years.

What Pat loved best were God, her family, playing the piano, knitting and crocheting, and reading books. At Morningside Baptist and Central Baptist churches, she played piano for services and choir, and for annual Christmas cantatas and the Living Christmas Tree. In the 1980s she played piano for the Sergeant Bluff Pioneer Valley Day Players as they put on Broadway musicals. Her church activities included taking attendance and listening to Bible verses at AWANA, founding the Monday morning fellowship/coffee hour, and helping with Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. When her children were young, she hosted a Good News Bible Club in their home. For twenty years she hosted a Super Bowl party for family and friends, giving much thought and effort to planning the menu and activities and buying prizes for giveaways. 

Patricia is survived by five children: Joan Arnold, Mapleton, Iowa; Elizabeth Widman, Sergeant Bluff, Iowa; Kate Jones (husband David), Maricopa, Arizona; David Arnold (wife Lori), Sioux City, Iowa; Mary Ludwig (husband Frank), Elsinore, Missouri. She is also survived by 25 grandchildren and 56 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents and four siblings, her husband Robert, and son-in-law David Widman.