Swanson, Wendell Royal (1905-2000)

SWANSON, JOHNSON, HOLLAND, GIRARD, EAGLE, FALKENBERG

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 12/12/2020 at 10:52:02

Daily Freeman Journal, Webster City, Iowa, Wednesday, July 5, 2000

Wendell Swanson, 95, Clarion, formerly of Galt, died Friday, June 30 at the U.S.A. Health Care Center in Clarion. Funeral services were held Wednesday at the First Baptist Church in Webster City with Rev. William Kem officiating. Burial was in the St. John's Catholic Church in Clarion.

Wendell Royal Swanson, son of Frank and Emma Johnson Swanson, on June 2, 1905 on a farm homesteaded by his grandmother at Osceola in Polk County, Neb. He graduated from Stromsburg High School in 1922 and the University of Nebraska in 1926. Following college, he farmed near Stromsburg with his brother, Rolland, and was later employed by the University of Nebraska Extension Service in 1934-35 to help establish the first federal farm program (AAA). He married Helen Elizabeth Holland at Lincoln, Neb. on May 20, 1939. They farmed at Dakota City, Neb. from 1939 until moving to Wall Lake Township in Wright County, Iowa in 1943.

He was a member of First Baptist Church in Webster City for 57 years and served as a Sunday school teacher for more than 30 years and as a deacon and trustee. He also served on the board of the North Iowa Artificial Insemination Association when it was first established, on the organization committee of the Clarion Community School at the time when the rural schools were joined together in Wright County and the Wright County Soil Conservation Board. He continued to farm until his retirement in 1975. He moved to the Meadows in Clarion in November 1996 and resided there until April of this year.

Survivors are his children and their spouses, Ron and Florine Swanson of Galt, Mary and Roger Girard of South St. Paul, Minn., Jeanne and Breck Eagle of Mattapoisett, Mass., and Joyce and Andreas Falkenberg, Bergen, Norway, 11 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren; a brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Myrna Swanson of Stromsburg, Neb.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife in October of 1995, brothers Rolland and Morgan Swanson.

Memorials may be made to the Community Memorial Hospital in Clarion, 4-H Foundation or First Baptist Church of Webster City.