Irma Heald

Irma Ruth Heald was born August 6, 1924, in Buffalo, NY, to Amelia and Carl Karschafske, immigrants from Austria-Hungary. After her mother died, at age 10 she went to live with her great-aunt Bertha Roth.

She met Vincent Menichelli as WWII broke out and waited for his return from service with his parents. During the war, like many women at the time, she worked in a factory supporting the war effort. Irma and Vincent married in 1946, and Vincent used the GI Bill to get a college degree while Irma raised a growing family of three daughters. On graduation, the family moved to Silver Spring, MD, in 1955 and soon had a fourth daughter.

As was normal for the era, Irma was a full-time mother, housewife, hostess, laundress, and cook and taught her daughters the benefits and challenges of that formidable role. After her divorce from Vincent in 1968, Irma went back into the workforce as a salesperson and bookkeeper.

In the 1969, she had the supreme good fortune to meet Denver Heald, a widower. He became the love of her life and source of much joy and serenity for the rest of her life. They married in 1977 and soon thereafter moved to Sun City, AZ. Together, they enjoyed retirement and the activities that the sunny Southwest offered – golfing, bowling (both she and Denny were inducted into Sun City Bowling Hall of Fame in 1992), visiting family, escaping the summer heat in Lake Havasu, AZ, or Park City, UT, and regularly walking in local shopping malls for exercise – for the next 40 years.

After Denny died in 2011, Irma moved to Northern CA to be close to one of her daughters. When living independently became difficult due to dementia, she moved into assisted living facilities and died peacefully on January 24, 2022, at age 97.

Irma is survived by her four daughters (Karen/Dan, Carol/Chuck, Sandra/Dennis, and Susan/Dannie), four grandchildren (Matthew/Laura, Valerie, Megan/Tim, and Ethan), and two great-grandchildren (Landon and Amelia).

Pictures below: Irma as a teenager, Irma and Denny Heald