DARLENE MACKOWSKI, 84, of Cherokee, Iowa , passed away Sunday morning, May 30, 2010 in the Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa following a brief illness.

Funeral services will be held on Thursday, June 3rd, at 10:30 a.m. at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Cherokee. Father Armand Bertrand will officiate. Burial will be in the Mt. Calvary Cemetery at Cherokee. Visitation will be on Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. with a prayer service at 7 p.m. at the Boothby Funeral Home in Cherokee. The family will be present Wednesday evening from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the funeral home. Online condolences can be left at www.boothbyfuneral.com The family requests that memorials be made to the American Lung Association.

Darlene was born March 28, 1926 at Meriden, Iowa to John & Pearl (Powell) Mileham. She graduated from Meriden High School in 1943. She was married to Edmund Leo Mackowski on April 22, 1946 at Cherokee, Iowa. Darlene had worked at the Iowa Department of Human Services for 20 years retiring in 1991. She was a member of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Cherokee, the V.F.W. Auxillary, and was a Plains Area Elderly Peer Volunteer. She loved to read, play cards, bowling, and enjoyed watching sports on TV.

She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband Leo in 1961.

She is survived by her 3 sons: Jim Mackowski and his wife Wendy of Irvine, California; Alan Mackowski of Cherokee, Iowa; David Mackowski and his wife Tammy of West Des Moines, Iowa; 5 grandchildren: Matthew Mackowski, Holly Brucchieri and her husband John, Nicole Mackowski, Jared Mackowski and Heather Mackowski; 2 sisters: Dorothy Perrin and her husband Chuck of Cherokee, Iowa and Barbara Anderson of Santee, California.