Cleo Steffens, nee Cleo Ann Hoffmann passed away peacefully Monday evening Nov. 13, at Friendship Village Chesterfield in St. Louis, where she had lived in recent years.
She was born Aug. 11, 1926, the second daughter of the late Luster G. Hoffmann and Cora Wissmann Hoffmann of Hoffmann’s Acres in Osage County.
After graduation from the Linn High School, she found work in St. Louis often rooming with her sister, Ruth, or another girlfriend and eventually with her paternal aunt and uncle, Anna and Ray Brandriff. But every Friday night found Cleo traveling by bus or private car home to the country for the weekend. This practice she continued throughout her life.
As was family habit when arriving after some time away from the farm, she leaned on her horn as she rounded the curve on the gravel road to her parents’ farmhouse announcing her arrival to the family and nearby neighbors every Friday evening.
Cleo was united in marriage to Jack Steffens in 1974 after several years of dating. He was murdered in 1987 by a disgruntled employee at a business he managed.
Always perfectly turned out, she landed a field installation role for the National Cash Register Company for whom she trained store staff on retail terminals at many of their larger clients from 1961 until her 1983 retirement from the company. After retirement Cleo followed a former NCR boss into his specialized auditing firm and worked productively until she was 89.
When her parents died and the family farms sold, she bought a small house in Mt. Sterling, next door to one cousin and across the street from another and continued her habit of spending weekends in the country.
Cleo loved cats and honored her cat with her personalized license plate.
She was preceded in death by husband, Jack; and parents, Luster and Cora.
Cleo is survived by niece, Carol Miller, and husband, George Thacher Guernsey, IV; and many cousins and family friends.
Memorial service will be held at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 27, at Ortmann-Stipanovich Funeral Home in St. Louis. Interment will be held at 1 p.m.,Thursday, Dec. 28, at Ebenezer Ryors United Church of Christ in Ryors.
Memorial contributions suggested to the Friendship Village Chesterfield Employee Fund or to Annie’s Hope.
Arrangements entrusted to Ortmann Stipanovich Funeral Home in Creve Coeur.
