Belva M. Walla, 94, a town of New Hope native, died Friday, April 13, 2012.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Zion Lutheran Church in Millwood, Wash.
Hazen & Jaeger Valley Funeral Home of Spokane, Wash., assisted the family with arrangements. Condolences may be offered at obits.dignitymemorial.com.
Mrs. Walla was born Jan. 27, 1918, in the town of New Hope, a daughter of the late Ole and Emilie Nerlien. She graduated from Rosholt High School in 1934 and from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., in 1938.
After eight years of teaching Latin and mathematics in Wisconsin, she served for 15 years as a missionary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Colombia, South America. She and her mother lived in Iola when she resumed her teaching career in junior and senior high school in Amherst, Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point until her retirement in 1980.
She volunteered on the staff of BALL World Missions in Hillsboro, Mo., from 1980 until 1996.
She was married to the Rev. Joseph L. Walla in 1996 and then moved to Spokane, Wash.
Survivors include her husband; one sister, Effie O. Krogwold, Spooner; and numerous nieces and nephews.
