DIBBLE, William Liggett, Dr. 1865-1940

DIBBLE, VAN HORNAM, CORNWELL

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 2/1/2013 at 16:58:22

RITES WILL BE
HELD FRIDAY IN
LOCAL CHURCH

Pastor Had Served as
Moderator for Iowa
Congregational Group

Dr. William Liggett Dibble, 75, retired minister and for 16 years pastor of the First Congregational church of Mason City, died late Wednesday afternoon at a local hospital following a lengthy illness.

Doctor Dibble, who had been a resident of Mason City for 21 years, had been prominent in religious, civic and business activities in this community.

Widely recognized in the Congregational ministry, Doctor Dibble served as stale moderator of the Congregational conference at Iowa, a member of the executive committee for four years and chairman of the executive committee for two years. He was moderator of the Mitchell association of the Congregational church for six years and a member of the executive committee for six years.

He was also prominent in the Masonic order, having served as district lecturer, past master of the Benevolence lodge of Mason City, grand chaplain and deputy grand master of the grand lodge of Iowa.

He was a charter member and past president of the Kiwanis club and served on the board of directors;of the Mason City Chamber of Commerce. He was prominent in the launching of the Community Chest in Mason City.

Funeral services will be held at the First Congregational church here Friday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock, with the Rev. J. Richmond Morgan, pastor of the First Congregational church at Waterloo, close friend of Doctor Dibble for 25 years, in charge. Assisting will be the Rev. Royal J. Montgomery, Cedar Rapids, superintendent of the Iowa state conference of Congregational and Christian churches, and the Rev. Stiles Lessley of the Congregational church at Osage.

A Masonic funeral will be held at the grave in Elmwood Cemetery, with Benevolence lodge in charge. Hemley J. Glass, close personal friend of Doctor Dibble, will conduct the service. R. J. McEwen will be chaplain. Masons have been asked to meet at the hall at 1:30 o'clock to go to the cemetery in a body.

J. H. Searle, Bristow, grand master of Masons in Iowa, expressed his regret in being unable to be here for the funeral services. A number of representatives of the grand lodge are expected to be present.

The body will be taken from the Patterson Funeral Home to the church at 1 o'clock and will lie there in state until the time of the funeral.

Doctor Dibble had been in ill health since he suffered a stroke, shortly after his retirement from the pastorale of the local church in 1935. Minor recurrences of this stroke continued to undermine his health and 15 weeks ago he was taken to the hospital.

Doctor Dibble was born at Randolph, Wisconsin, on January 1, 1865, the son of James Weston and Mary Elizabeth (Van Hornam) Dibble, who had migrated lo Columbia County, Wisconsin, from New York State.

When he was four years old his parents moved to Howard County, Iowa, where he lived until he was 14 years old, when his parents moved to South Dakota, settling between Flandreau and Brookings. There he attended country school and the Brookings academy, from which he was graduated. He was graduated from the Sioux Falls University in 1892.

He paid his academy and college expenses largely by working in lumber camps and in the wheat fields of North Dakota. where he had an opportunity lo learn human nature in the raw and developed a self-reliance, which was one of his outstanding characteristics throughout life. He studied theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, now incorporated in the University of Chicago, from which he was graduated with high scholastic honors in 1895.

He was married to Maude Cornwell of Rochester, Minnesota on September 1, 1892. During his seminary work, he was acting pastor of a small Congregational church at Ivanhoe, a suburb of Chicago.

He was ordained in the Congregational church upon his graduation from the seminary in May, 1895, and active in the ministry until his retirement on September 1, 1935, from the First Congregational Church of Mason City which pulpit he had filled for more than 16 years. Before coming to Mason City he held churches at Guthrie, Oklahoma, Vermillion, South Dakota, Columbus, Nebraska, and Charles City.

He is survived by two brothers, J. B. Dibble of Hurley South Dakota, and Zell Dibble of Los Angeles, California; four sisters: Mrs. Harriet Stowe of Seattle, Washington, Mrs. Roy Warner of Muscatine, Mrs. Andrew Whaley of Rutland, South Dakota, and Mrs. William P. Slockum of Arlington, South Dakota, and two sons, Lester C. Dibble, Mason City attorney and John W. Dibble, president and manager of the Highway Oil Company here. Four granddaughters also survive.

[Mason City Globe-Gazette, Thursday, July 25, 1940, Mason City, Iowa]

Photo of William Dibble
 

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