Ellwanger, James (1944-2012)

ELLWANGER, OROURKE, EDWARDS, FREDERICKSEN, KUNKEL, LOEW, FABER, MULRONEY

Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 11/17/2012 at 11:32:09

James Ellwanger
October 28, 1944 - October 24, 1944

In San Antonio, Texas, James Robert "Jim" Ellwanger passed peacefully into his new life with God on October 24, four days before his 68th birthday, after a valiant eleven-month battle with brain cancer.

Jim was born in Carroll on October 28, 1944, to James Arthur "Art" and Mary Frances (O'Rourke) Ellwanger. He grew up on the family farm near Newell, and at an early age, his love of baseball became apparent. His parent's farmyard was the site of many baseball games with his brother, cousins, and boyhood friends. He graduated from Newell-Providence High School in Newell in 1962 and Buena Vista College in Storm Lake in 1966. He earned a Master’s Degree at the University of Iowa in 1978. He earned money to pay for his college education by painting houses, driving a milk truck, and raising purebred Hampshire hogs.

Jim married Gloria Faber on December 26, 1969, at St. John’s Catholic Church, Bancroft. Their marriage was blessed with two children, Eric and Marla.

After serving in the US Army from 1969 to 1971, Jim coached at Spalding Catholic High School in Granville where his 1971 baseball team won the Fall AA State Baseball championship. From 1972 to 1977, he taught and coached at St. Edmond’s High School in Fort Dodge. In 1978, Jim began his college baseball coaching career at Briar Cliff College in Sioux City where he initiated its baseball program. During his teaching and coaching career, he received numerous honors including being named the Iowa High School Baseball Coach of the Year in 1977 and the Iowa College Baseball Coach of the year in 1980. In 1983, he was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Between 1986 and 1992, Jim established a second respected and winning baseball program, this time at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. From 1992 until December 2011, after illness forced him to retire, he taught at the East Central and North East ISD Alternative Schools. From 2000 to 2011, he also worked an adjunct instructor at UIW, teaching Dimensions of Wellness courses. Always a man to keep himself in excellent physical condition, he regularly outran and outlasted his much younger college students. He found great joy in teaching young adults how to become and stay physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually fit. Jim read constantly, knowing that learning and education were life-long pursuits.

Jim taught and lived his life philosophy by example: be positive, do your best and never give up. A gentleman and a gentle man, he accepted every person on their own merits. His quiet integrity and his compassion for the less fortunate were part of his character and readily apparent in how he lived his life.

An exemplary and loving husband, a father of two, and a grandfather of five, Jim raised a happy and loving family, his greatest legacy. A life-long Catholic Christian, he practiced his faith and tried to live the Gospel of Jesus each day of his life.

Despite his busy work schedule, Jim also found time for hobbies that included running, hiking, following the St. Louis Cardinals and the Iowa Hawkeyes, creating and maintaining a beautiful yard and koi pond, reading, traveling to historic sites, doing antique shows with his wife, and spending time with his children and grandchildren.

He will be greatly missed by his wife and soul mate of forty-two years, Gloria; his son, Eric Ellwanger (Tara), of Allen, Texas; and his daughter, Marla Edwards (Chad), of North Little Rock, Arkansas; his grandchildren, Allie and Megan Ellwanger and René, Austin, and Ella Edwards; his brother, Kendrick Ellwanger (Mary), of Larkspur, Colorado; and his brothers- and sisters-in-law, Judy Fredericksen, Rosella (Conrad) Kunkel, Kathleen (Don) Loew, Melvin (Lucille) Faber, and Cindy (Mike) Mulroney; as well as sixteen nieces and nephews; numerous great nieces and nephews, and cousins. His parents, Art and Mary Ellwanger; his paternal and maternal grandparents; and a niece, Nancy Loew, preceded him in death.

Visitation will be held on Saturday, November 3rd, 2012, from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Corpus Christi Church in Fort Dodge followed by a Mass in Celebration of Jim's life at 10:30 a.m. at Corpus Christi Church. Private interment will be held at Oakland Cemetery, Sac City, where he will rest near his parents and his O'Rourke grandparents. The Laufersweiler-Sievers Funeral Home in Fort Dodge is serving the family.

Memorial gifts may be made in Jim's name to The Chromosome 18 Registry, 7155 Oakridge Drive, San Antonio, Texas, http://www.chromosome18.org , or to the Sisters of St. Francis, 3390 Windsor Ave, Dubuque.

© Copyright 2012, Storm Lake Pilot Tribune

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