William Bernard Feeney 1918-2008

FEENEY, CANNON, DONOVAN, VOGAN, SHANKY, COLEMAN

Posted By: J. N. (email)
Date: 12/26/2008 at 18:05:08

Telegraph Herald
Dubuque, Iowa
Wednesday, December 24, 2008

William B. Feeney

William Bernard Feeney, 90, of Scottsdale, Ariz., formerly of Dubuque and Bernard, Iowa, died Sunday, Dec. 21, 2008, in Scottsdale.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 27, at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Garryowen, Iowa, with the Rev. Douglas Loecke and the Rev. Michael Hutchins, SVD, officiating. Burial will be in the church cemetery, where military rites will be accorded by Cascade Legion Post 528. Friends may call from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 26, at Leonard Funeral Home & Crematory, 2595 Rockdale Road, where there will be a wake service at 3 p.m.

He was born on May 18, 1918, in Bernard, the fifth of nine children born to Patrick W. and Mary Rose (Cannon) Feeney. Parents, children and an uncle Jim Feeney worked their small farm, raising virtually all of their own food.

At age 17, in the depths of the Great Depression, Bill left the farm with only the clothes on his back, riding railcars and traveling the Midwest, West Coast and up to Alaska as a farm laborer and commercial fisherman.

Bill joined the Navy at age 20, and served aboard the USS Phoenix, prior to and throughout World War II. He participated in many of the early battles of the Pacific Theater, including Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Cape Gloucester, Admiralty Islands, Leyte Gulf and the Philippines invasion. Bill was a gunnery spotter, directing the guns on the ship. He was severely injured during his WWII service. He received several military medals and left the Navy in 1947.

He came home to Dubuque and married Ethel Mary Donovan, "the girl across the corn field," in 1949; she preceded him in death in 1996. Despite the enduring effects of war injuries, he worked as a cab driver, salesman, postal worker and school bus driver. They relocated to Scottsdale with their four children in 1962.

Bill enjoyed fishing, baseball, reading, traveling and prospecting for gold in the backcountry of Arizona. Bill and Ethel made yearly trips to Dubuque County, maintaining strong connections with their large extended family. A quiet, affable man, Bill was devoted to his immediate and extended family, his country and his Catholic faith.

Surviving are his children, Susan J. (Rollin G. II) Vogan, of Charlotte, N.C., Julia S. (Christopher F.) Shanky, of Northampton, Mass., and Michael J. (Diane) Feeney, of Phoenix, Ariz.; his grandchildren, Christopher Vogan, Shannon Feeney, Megan Feeney, Samuel F. Shanky and Nicholas F. Shanky; a brother, Robert (Milly) Feeney, of Dubuque; sisters-in-law, Helen Feeney, of Maquoketa, Iowa, Anne Feeney, of Bernard, and Doris Feeney, of Dubuque; and more than 50 nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his youngest child, John Christopher Feeney, in 1973; and seven siblings, Gerald, Joseph, Harold, Loras, Mary Catherine Coleman, Tom and Paul.