John A. Flack

FLACK, GIFFORD

Posted By: Kathy Zobeck (email)
Date: 12/10/2007 at 10:19:55

John Arthur Flack
24 May 1928 – 08 December 2007

John was born in a farmhouse outside Dickens, Iowa to John Carl (1977) and Dorothy Ruby (Weber, 2000) Flack as the first of four children. His siblings were Vanita (Williams, Bill) of Fayette, Missouri, Duane (Joyce James) of Wichita Falls, Texas and Marilyn (Craig, Bill) of Spencer, Iowa.

John was baptized into Christ June 1929 in the Methodist church. He transferred his membership to the Lutheran church after he met the young woman who would become his wife. The Iowa summer of 1950 was rounding out to be hot and humid in Spencer when John married H. Darlene Gifford Sunday evening July 30th at Trinity Lutheran Church. Theirs was the first wedding in the new sanctuary.

With Darlene, John had four children: John Quentin who preceded him in death 16 August 1970, Kathryn Kay (Scheetz) of Iowa City, Iowa, Sidney Lee (Gail) of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Joel Dean (Margarita) also of Iowa City.

His children gave him and Darlene seven grandchildren: Kay – Daniel and Timothy (Kelsey Kempf); Sidney – John (Clare) and Miriam (Jose Zambrano); Joel – Andrea, William and Natalia. To his last breath John was proud of and doted on each and every one of them.

Life in rural Iowa when John was born was as hard as it was most everywhere else during the Depression. John was sent to live with his grandparents in order to make room for his bothers and sisters in his parents’ house. Home then became an abandoned box car heated by burning field corn instead of coal. Corn wasn’t worth much.

Anyone who listened to his stories long enough can tell you how his father recruited John to flag for him while he crop dusted. John would have to stand at the end of the bean rows waving a flag so his father would know just when to pull up to fly between the fence and power lines. John’s eyes always twinkled when he told how he had to dive to the side between the rows just in time to hear the propeller of this father’s plane clip the bean leaves above his head.

Or another story that might be remembered was how, years later, he flew his own 1947 Taylor Craft through thick fog to a flight breakfast. The fog was so heavy he was just feet above the highway. He looked out one window and there were the power lines, out the other window and there was a grain elevator.

When he turned fourteen John was not only already shaving a full beard but, because so many men were off behind the lines of World War II, he bypassed the age limits, got his driver’s license and began driving a milk truck to help his family make ends meet.

Under his father’s critical eye John learned to work with hands whose fingers grew thick as sticks over the years. Until computers came around he hardly met a motor or engine he couldn’t take apart or rebuild. Once he was presented with an army surplus diesel bulldozer that had stopped running long before the Army had finished with it. He’d never worked one before but he soon had it running and kept it running for years.

Growing up in hard times made John a prodigious gardener. One of the things he always grew was sweet corn, lots of sweet corn. He also loved doing things for his church and for years he and Darlene hosted an annual sweet corn feed for the entire congregation.

And then there was his wine. He made lots of wine. Anyone who was at Kay’s wedding reception will remember his wine. Some of them needed a quiet place to lie down toward the end.

In his lifetime John worked at many jobs. From driving a milk truck to birthing cows, every job he did was someway related to farming. Even his many years working for the Iowa State Conservation Commission were at their core farming based. And when he turned to fixing roofs the skills he learned early in life became a foundation for the rafters he repaired.

John died Saturday morning in the predawn light doing something he loved, walking through the woods deer hunting with his son, Joel.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that friends and family contribute to a memorial fund being established in his name. All contributions will be used to benefit Christ the King Lutheran Church and the Iowa Hunter Education program.