Alice Terpstra LaRosa, 102, died on Sunday, June 8, 2025.
Alice was the wife of the late Jesse LaRosa. She was the mother of Joanne Barclay (Andrew), Jessica LaRosa (Stephen), and John LaRosa (Deborah). She was the grandmother to Andy, Alex, Elizabeth, David, and Emily Barclay and John Shaw, and great-grandmother to Leah and Alton with another great-granddaughter on the way. She was the sister to her surviving brother Albert Terpstra of Grinnell.
She was preceded in death by her parents, half-sisters Alma Kingma Terpstra (Carl) and Elizabeth Kingma Van Rees (Clarence), half-brother George Terpstra (Pauline), and brothers Arnold Terpstra (Ruth) and John Terpstra (Sylviana).
Alice was born Mar. 28, 1923, on a farm two miles northeast of Lynnville to Wietske Visser Kingma and Arie Terpstra, both of The Netherlands. Alice attended rural Lynnville public schools and graduated from Central College in Pella, paid for by grass seed from her father’s business, Lynnville Seed Company.
Mrs. LaRosa was a public-school teacher in Iowa and Missouri for 40 years before moving to Kansas. She was a lifelong activist for the Democratic Party, belonged to the National Education Association, and was a crusader for the Equal Rights Amendment. She helped countless people obtain their G.E.D.s and was a tireless volunteer for the Special Olympics.
In 1939, Alice was named to Iowa High School All-State Girls’ Basketball Team, and in 1970, she was named to the Iowa Girls’ Basketball Hall of Fame.
Alice strived to be of use.
