David Gebhard

GEBHARD, ZERKEL, TOTH, WHALEN

Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 1/19/2016 at 16:36:53

David Gebhard died peacefully at home in Iowa City on November 11, 2015, after a long illness.
A Celebration of Life will be held at the Kirkwood Room, 515 Kirkwood Avenue in Iowa City, on Friday, January 22 from 2 to5 p.m. January 22 will be the 75th anniversary of David’s birth.
Memorials may be directed to the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa (940 S. Gilbert Court, Iowa City 52240), to Faith United Church of Christ (1609 DeForest Avenue, Iowa City 52240) or to Iowa City Hospice (1025 Wade Street, 52240).

David wished to be cremated. His cremains will be scattered in upstate New York at a later date.
Born in Yonkers, New York in 1941 and raised there until his 14th birthday, David moved with his parents to San Rafael, California where he lived until entering Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He later earned an M.A. in History from the University of Iowa and passed Ph.D. comprehensive exams there. David taught at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; at Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri; at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Iowa. An intuitively creative teacher, David made one demand of students: that they learn to think. Many of those who accepted the challenge have said they would never forget his teaching.

David and his first wife Ilona Kay (Toth) Gebhard gave birth to two sons, Peter (born 1961) and David (born 1963).

In 1978 David married Ann Zerkel, a colleague at Kirkwood Community College.In 1995 David and Ann bought property in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York and began spending summers there. They also explored early highway routes, travelling from New York to Los Angeles on dirt, gravel and paved roadbeds, following primitive instructions from early automobile road guides and photographing the routes through the windshield as they went. In September 2015 David finished a book-length manuscript he had been writing for 20 years, a history of the U.S. “Good Roads Movement” between 1880 and 1912, and how the development of highways came to interfere with local community life, through the growth of suburbs and the demise of small towns. David is indebted to Eileen Bartos and to Ken Kekke for their insightful editing suggestions.

A vocal advocate for justice, David helped found the Economic Justice Committee of Faith United Church of Christ in Iowa City, and was its first chairperson. In 2013 he passed that baton to his wife, Ann.

Also an amateur woodworker, athlete, musician, painter, playwright, novelist, poet, art-film enthusiast and tireless punster, David Gebhard loved life and lived fully, letting life come to him. His dental hygienist has said that he could giggle even in a dental chair.

He was predeceased by parents Julius (1896-1986) and Jean (1903-1990) Gebhard, and by his ex-wife Ilona Kay (Toth) Gebhard, who died in 2011.

David is survived by his wife, Ann Zerkel; his sons, Peter and David Gebhard, Jr.; brothers-in-law Lee and Rob Whalen and Tom Zerkel (Sarah); and numerous cousins, nephews, nieces, and dear friends.

Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service
 

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