Whitmer, Hessel Ray 1907 – 2002

WHITMER, HALFERTY, GLEASON

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/22/2024 at 16:07:23

Source: Times Plain Dealer; Mar. 13, 2002 Page A-3
from Elma library collection assembled by Marian (Marr) McGee
Transcribed by Joy Moore

Services to be held for Ray Whitmer
Funeral services for H. Ray Whitmer will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 14 at Peace Lutheran Church in Ridgeway with Pastors Phillip and Ginny Olson officiating. Interment will be at a later date in Oak Lawn Cemetery in Cresco.
Friends may call at the Lindstrom Funeral Home in Cresco from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday and one hour before services at the church on Thursday.
Ray, 94, died Friday, March 8, 2002 at the Regional Health Services of Howard Co. in Cresco.
H. Ray Whitmer was born August 31, 1907 at Fremont, the son of Clell Leslie and Carrie Eva (Halferty) Whitmer. He was baptized in the Baptist Church in 1914. The family moved to Sigourney when Ray was nine years old. His father bought a meat market and Ray helped his father while he went to school. He was a bat boy as a young man and was All State as a member of the Sigourney Salary Baseball team. Ray was a freshman in 1924 and graduated in 1927. He continued his education and has a civil engineering degree from Iowa State.
Ray worked on paving gangs and was a ticket agent on the Milwaukee Railroad at Sigourney. He also worked as a trucker and was a Civil Service CPCS at the Veteran’s Hospital in Clinton. Ray was a foreman in the CCC camps in Preston, MN, Cresco, Calmar, and Boone.
On September 14, 1934 he married Marjorie Gleason at the Methodist Church in Waukon. They bought the Soda Grill in Ridgeway in 1936. Ray served in the Army (17th Airborne) from May 5, 1942 until September 17, 1945. He was a mess Sgt. in the 193rd Glider Infantry. He was also a paratrooper. Ray served in the Medical Dept. in a German prison camp in 1943 and 1944.
Ray worked for the Iowa DOT beginning in 1956 as an inspector of roads, bridges, culverts, intakes, etc. He also had a State of Iowa Cream Testers license and was an assistant butter maker. Ray and Marge ran the Soda Grill in Ridgeway for 37 years. He retired in December of 1969. They built their new home in Ridgeway in 1972.
Ray served as a scoutmaster, enjoyed bowling and managed a baseball team.
Ray was preceded in death by his wife Marjorie on September 26, 1999; and his parents.

Transcriber’s Note: His gravestone shows his first name as Hessel.

Oak Lawn Cemetery
 

Howard Obituaries maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
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