Donald L. Hoth

HOTH, MEIKLE, BARR

Posted By: Patricia Morehouse (email)
Date: 4/14/2008 at 14:20:37

Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA)

March 30, 2006
Edition: F
Page: 6B

LAMONT
Donald L. Hoth, 90, of Lamont, died Monday, March 27, 2006, in Great River Medical Klein Center, Burlington, after a lengthy illness. Services: 11 a.m. Saturday, Lamont Baptist Church. Burial: Oakland Cemetery, Manchester. Friends may call from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at Fawcett Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Lamont, where a Masonic service will take place. He is survived by his son, Steven Hoth and wife JoEllen of Burlington; his daughter, Sandra Hoth of Dundee; and two grandsons, Andrew Hoth and wife Katie of Burlington and Peter Hoth and wife Karin of East Douglas, Mass.

Online condolences may be sent on the Web site at www.fawcettsfuneralhome.com under obituaries.
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Donald L. Hoth
(August 27, 1915 - March 27, 2006)

Donald L. Hoth’s 90 years of learning, teaching, and service to his communities ended on March 27, 2006 as he passed peacefully to his next great adventure. Born in Sumner, Iowa on August 27, 1915 to Ethel Jane (Meikle) and Albert Hoth, Don had five siblings, two brothers, William and Harold, and three sisters, Louise and Leota and Ethel, all deceased. He graduated from Oelwein High School in 1933 and received his B.A. in history and education from Upper Iowa University in Fayette in 1937. He completed a master’s degree from the University of Iowa and entered a doctoral program there. For years he continued summer and evening studies at the University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa, the University of Texas in Austin, University of Montana in Bozeman and Columbia University in New York City. He took pride in having been a Fulbright Scholar studying at the Goethe Institute in Munich, Germany. At age 23, Don took a position as superintendent for the Bremer-Fayette Consolidated Schools in Orin, Iowa, becoming the youngest superintendent in the Iowa Public School system. In Don’s early career with the schools, in addition to teaching and his administrative duties, he enjoyed coaching. Having participated in athletics at the high school and college level, Don successfully coached a number of high school athletic teams. He later served as superintendent for the schools in Aurora, Dundee and Lamont. He was instrumental in the formation of the Starmont School District and created the name “Starmont” for the school serving Strawberry Point, Arlington, and Lamont. He retired after 47 years of teaching at age 70, when required to do so by Iowa State law. Don married Ina Barr in 1937. During their 57 years of marriage they had two children, a son Steven, an attorney in Burlington, Iowa and a daughter, Sandra, who taught in both high school and college, worked for Delaware County and the State of Iowa in social services and now winters in Dundee and has a summer art gallery in Port Wing, Wisconsin. Don was blessed with two wonderful grandsons, Andrew Hoth who practices law with his father, Steven, and Dr. Peter Hoth who is completing a Family Practice Residency in Massachusetts.
Don was actively involved in the Lamont Commercial Club and the Lions at Strawberry Point. He was Worshipful Master for the Masons and for ten years represented Buchanan County in the Older Iowa Legislature. Don loved to travel, beginning with the trips he and his brother Harold took to the west coast, “rail jumping” in boxcars and flatbed railcars. In the Northwest for a summer they lived on the beaches of Washington, learned about bear hunting from an Olympic Peninsula homesteader, and picked strawberries for their uncle. As a young man Don also worked for the railroad earning thirty-five cents an hour as a “gandy dancer.” He visited every state in the union and every state capitol. During World War II he taught radio communications for the Army Air Force in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. A man of many interests, Donald loved to draw, paint, sing, do woodcarving and wood turning on the lathe. He loved to read and write and wrote a history of the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad as well as volumes of reflection on the world he lived in and the people he knew and touched. He loved trees and lived out his belief in conservation by planting thousands of trees in northeast Iowa. Hundreds of students and teachers reminisce on the ways Don made a difference in their lives. Donald L. Hoth will be remembered as a scholar, a teacher, a philosopher, and a poet. Don entered his eternal rest on Monday March 27, 2006 at the Great River Medical Center, Klein Center in Burlington,Iowa. He was 90 years of age. Don is survived by a daughter Sandra Hoth of Dundee, Iowa, by a son Steven Hoth and his wife JoEllen of Burlington, Iowa, and by two grandsons Andrew Hoth and his wife Katie also of Burlington and Peter Hoth and his wife Karin of East Douglas, Massachusetts. Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 31st at Fawcetts Funeral Chapel in Lamont, Iowa. The funeral will be at 11:00 a.m., Saturday, April 1st at the First Baptist Church in Lamont with commitment to follow at Oakland Cemetery in Manchester. Memorials have been established at the Lamont Public Library and the Manchester Public Library. The Fawcett Funeral Homes are assisting the family with arrangements.