Kraai, Dayton (1932-2018)

KRAAI, KOSTS, PETERSEN, COOK

Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 5/18/2021 at 17:36:23

Dayton Kraai
September 5. 1932 - July 6, 2018

Dayton Kraai, a son of Harold and Henrietta Kosts Kraai, was born and baptized in Orange City, Iowa. He passed away on July 6, 2018, at Loring Hospital in Sac City.

At the of 4, he moved with his parents when they answered a call to serve on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation in Dulce, New Mexico. They spent five and a half years there before moving back to Iowa for several years. In time, however, the family moved back to Dulce where Dayton attended his freshman year of high school. Nevertheless, Orange City, eventually, became their permanent home. Dayton attended junior college at Northwester. Upon graduating, he worked in Orange City before his call to duty with the army. After his discharge in 1956, he began working in Cherokee.

Dayton married Luella Petersen of Newell in 1960. They lived in Cherokee for a short time but then moved to a farm northwest of Newell. Before accepting a position which he held for fifteen years at the Newell School as a custodian and bus driver, he worked at the standard oil station in Newell. He, then, spent equal amounts of time working at Newell Lumber before it closed and at UBC in Storm Lake until he retired because of a work injury.

Dayton loved young people. Indeed, he enjoyed attending all their sporting and musical events. He, even, continued supporting the Newell teams from the time the Newell and Fonda school districts consolidated in 1990 until he entered the Newell Good Samaritan Center in 2016. In late years, he became afflicted with Parkinson's disease. A member of the St. John’s Lutheran Church, rural Albert City, he especially enjoyed signing in the church choir as well as performing solos and duets when needed.

He is survived by his wife, Luella, and his children: Randy (Stephanie) Kraai and grandson, Levi, of Billings, Montana, Seoet Kraai, of Newell, and Jodi and Jeff Cook, of Des Moines; his brothers: John, of Havana, Florida, LeRoy, of West Des Moines, and Mark, of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Burial will follow at a later date.

The Family of Dayton Kraai