Colleen (Alkire) Gebbie (2013)

ALKIRE, GEBBIE, ELLISON, RABER, SMITH, SAGE, BRUE, BURKE, JOHNSTON

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber (email)
Date: 1/8/2020 at 10:10:26

Earlham Advocate
Earlham, Iowa

Colleen (Chic) Gebbie, 89, of Dexter passed away April 2, 2013 at the Community Care Center in Stuart. Funeral Services was held on Saturday April 6 at the First Congregational Church in Stuart. Visitation was held on Saturday April 6 at the First Congregational Church in Stuart. Burial will be at the South Oak Grove Cemetery in Stuart. Memorial contributions may be directed to the First Congregational Church in care of Johnson Family Funeral Home.

Colleen (Chic) was born on January 3, 194 to Jack and Isabele (Ellison) Alkire in Greeley, Colorado and lived there until the age of fur when she went with her divorced mother to Hayden, Colorado to work for a widower of three children. They were later married. While in Colorado she attended two different schools in the country, where they rode horse back over the mountains or went by bobsled, sometimes in the winter, at the age of eight or nine the family moved to Iowa where the father worked at the Maytag Company in Newton. She attended country schools until the fifth grade when she went to Stuart grade school and high school where she graduated in 1943. She taught in a country school for a time then was married to Kenneth Gebbie in 1946. They started farming and later two children were born to this union, a son Kenneth D. and a daughter Barbara, who preceded her in death in 2008.

She loved farming and animals and loved to take care of them. She heled with the farming all her life. She liked flowers and planting new seeds.

After retiring she enjoyed bowling and being with the crowd. She loved to travel and see new country and new things. She was a member of the Congregational Church in Stuart and did volunteer work for the women’s group, she volunteered at the nursing home playing bingo and did volunteer work for the American Legion Auxiliary.

She was preceded in death by her father, Jack Alkire; mother, Isabele Raber; step-father, Doice Raber; daughter, Barbara Smith; siblings, Jack Alkire, Vivian Alkire, Eloise Ellis Eileen Sage; and step-siblings, Fern Brue, Larry Raber and Clarence Raber.

Left behind to cherish her memory is her loving husband of 66 years Kenneth Gebbie of Dexter; son Kenneth D. Gebbie of Dexter; grandchildren, Jason (Jennifer) Smith and their daughter Kayla of Smithville, Missouri, Kenneth Gebbie Jr. and his children, Kyle, Keegan, Grace and Bradley of Greenfield, Kasey (Talena) Gebbie and their children, Samantha, Kennedy, December, Jonathan and Zackery of Bedford, and Sara Smith-Burke and her daughters, Addison and Taylor of Gilbert, Arizona; sister, Maxine Johnston of Redfield and a host of nieces, nephews and friends all of whom will miss her greatly.