Pellett, Franklin C. 1930-2004

PELLETT, SUMMERBELL, STEIGERWALT, MATHIESEN

Posted By: Barbara Hug
Date: 3/31/2005 at 18:59:38

Franklin C. "Frank" Pellett, 73, of Newton died Wednesday, Aug. 4, at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.

No services are scheduled.

Friends may call from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Wallace Family Funeral Home in Newton where the family will be available with a coffee time in the social room. Memorials will be accepted in his name and may be left at the funeral home.

The son of Kent and Marie (Summerbell) Pellett, he was born Oct. 20, 1930, in Lehigh. He was a graduate of Hudson High School in Hudson and also graduated from Iowa State University in Ames. He married Beverly Steigerwalt in 1951 in Hudson. He later married Denise Mathiesen on June 16, 1991, in rural Newton.

Mr. Pellett and his first wife owned and operated Pellett's Nursery. They started the business in Glidden in 1959, and in 1961 moved the business to Newton. He was a part of the Environmental Action Group that started the Newton Recycling Center. He started the first Prairie Flower Preserve in Iowa along old Highway 6, west of Newton by his nursery. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the late 1950s in Washington and Oregon. He and his crew planted more than 1 million trees during the time that he worked. He was a member of the Metz Church and Sugar Grove Grange.

Survivors include his wife, Denise; four sons and two daughters-in-law, Flint and Nancy Jane Pellett of Urbana, Ill., Dirk Pellett of Scotts Valley, Calif., Brant Pellett of Los Angeles, Calif., and Chert and Cheryl Pellett of Highland Village, Texas; two daughters and a son-in-law, Jeanne Lundberg of Newton and Kay and Will Eberhart of Urbana, Ill.; nine grandchildren; 1 great-grandchild; a brother and sister-in-law, David and Janice Pellett of Narrangansett, R.I.; a sister, Susan Penn of Manhattan, Mont.; and several nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his first wife. ~ Newton (IA) Daily News, Friday, August 6, 2004