Wormley, George W. – 1860-1925

CRISSMAN, HARRIMAN, MOLLECK, SKINNER, SMITH, SPENCER, TRAMEL, WORMLEY

Posted By: Diana Wagner
Date: 10/27/2016 at 20:25:09

Wormley Rites Held Yesterday
Funeral Service is Conducted at Methodist Episcopal Church
Funeral services for the late George W. Wormley were held at the Methodist Episcopal church yesterday afternoon, with the Rev. Robert Stuart officiating.
Members of the Odd Fellow lodge, who attended in a body, conducted the services at the grave. Members of the Palo Alto grange, to which Mr. Wormley belonged and members of the old Hazel Dell school also attended in a body.
Out of town relatives who attended the services were: Mrs. W. E. Harriman of Ames, J. M. Wormley of Kingsley, Mrs. Sarah Crissman and North Crissman of Oskaloosa, Charles and Mary Tramel of Ira, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Skinner and Miss Letta Skinner of Des Moines, and D. S. Wormley wife and family of Kingsley.
The follow tribute was paid to Mr. Wormley by his brother, J. M. Wormley who read the following obituary.
Obituary of George W. Wormley
George W. Wormley was born in McDonough County, Illinois, on the 25th day of May 1860, and died on the 21st day of August 1925 at his home in Newton, Iowa. While yet a small lad, he moved with his parents, the late Samuel S. and Susan Wormley, to the Wittemburg neighborhood in Jasper county where he grew to manhood. He was the oldest of a family of 12 children. He was married to Mary E. Spencer March 17th, 1885, and to this union were born six children, Donald S. of Kingsley, Iowa, George of State Center, Ia., and Burton, Fred, Mrs. Eldon Smith and Mrs. Nick Molleck, all of Newton, Ia. He is survived by his widow, all of his children and fourteen grandchildren, also four brothers and five sisters.
He attended the common schools at Wittemburg, Hazel Dell Academy, and was graduated from Iowa State college at Ames in 1884. Upon graduation he chose teaching for his life work and became owner and principal of Hazel Dell Academy, which afterward became Newton Normal College, which was founded and built by him.
He was engaged in teaching in these two institutions, for 22 years retiring in 1905, on account of failing health, when he moved onto a farm south of Newton, which he still owns, later moving to his present home in College Addition, in Newton, to spend the remaining years of his life.
He held a high record as an educator and teacher and was held in high regard by all of his students, many of whom sought his advice when in life, and many of whom have prominent in state and national affairs. He has often given expression to the thought that he felt repaid for his long hard years of toil as an instructor by the thought that he had helped to shape the future life of so many young men and women and to start them on the road to future usefulness.
He was a prominent member of Odd Fellows Lodge of Newton, of Palo Alto Grange and of the Methodist Episcopal church which he joined in early manhood and in the success of which he was deeply interested and active as a class leader and teacher for many years, and will be sadly missed by the members of his church and lodges, and his death will be mourned by a host of friends and relatives.
The death of George W. Wormley takes from the community one of its most desirable citizens and marks the passing of a useful life. A highly educate Christian gentleman, his life has been rich in human service and ripe in human experience and the good of his influence upon other lives will live long after he is gone. Well equipped to live, he loved life, but he had long since put his house in order and was as well prepared to die.
Fearless in defending the truth as the truth was revealed to him, uncompromising with wrong he had willingness and capacity for assistance toward the good of all spiritual and temporal affairs.
He sought the friendship of men, not that he might be popular amongst them, but that he might help them and be helped wherever men have gathered or wherever men have gone, without respect to creed or religion, there he has been welcome. In the home, in the church, in the lodge, he has met men as equals, neither he nor they claiming superiority or confessing inferiority. He won the confidence of men as few men do, he got close to them as few men can, and now that he has passed on, his greatest memorial will be in the hearts of those who have known him, where the memory of his life and love will always be enshrined.
He leaves a life companion who is lonely today, because the husband of her youth has gone out of the house to come again no more. He was a good father to his family, a source of strength in every hour of weakness, a fortress in every storm. Always a good companion to his wife and children to make them happy and share their happiness was a delight which grew with passing years and now that he has moved on and up, their hearts are strangely sad since his heart is silent and they can only sit in the sunset and wait for the morning and the meeting of the calm cool fragrance of the skies where he believed and had the spiritual assurance that “mine own will come to me,” where beck will answer beck and call respond to call, where no ill of tide or foam can bear on far from moorings and where “we shall know as we are known,” until then farewell.
Source: Newton Daily News; August 24, 1925