Pierre Gombert (1932-2021)

GOMBERT, WINK, DEUTMEYER, RATHJE

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/22/2021 at 17:23:59

PIERRE "PETE" GOMBERT

Anamosa

Pierre "Pete" Gombert, 89, died Friday, Nov. 19, 2021, at the Oldorf Hospice House, Hiawatha, following a brief illness.

Mass of Christian Burial will be held

10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23, at St. Isadore Catholic Church, Springville, with interment in the Riverside Cemetery, Anamosa, with military honors. Friends are invited to join the family for the funeral Mass. The family will greet friends following the interment at Sally's in Springville in a final celebration of Pete's life. Goettsch Funeral Home, Anamosa, has taken Pete and his family into their care. Please visit goettschonline.com and share your thoughts, memories, stories and condolences with Pete's family. Mask are not required but are highly recommended.

Surviving is his wife, Lois; five children, Bruce Gombert , Marion, Susan (Todd) Wink, Franklin, Tenn., Pierrette (Jeff) Deutmeyer, Naples, Fla., A.J. (Mike) Rathje, Anamosa, and Randy Gombert, Morley; 14 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents; a daughter, Kim; a grandson, Daniel Gombert; and siblings, Ramona Ehlts, Clair Gombert, Owen Gombert and Jon Gombert.

Pierre "Pete" Lee Gombert was born to Christian and Zelma Edwards, Gombert, in Maquoketa, Iowa, on March 28, 1932. He attended school in various small Iowa towns, such as Otter Creek, Wyo., and Onslow. He made his way to Kewanee, Ill., as a young man, where he worked as a farm hand. Pete served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Upon his departure from the service in 1954, and his return to the United States, he resumed driving trucks for different shipping companies, and started logging for a man on Nine Mile Island, near Dubuque. He started logging on his own with a horse drawn flatbed, using it to pull the timber up to his truck. During this time, he was working at John Deere as a machine operator, where he met Lois Duehr his future wife. The couple were married on Oct. 21, 1967, at Marion, Iowa. After he had saved enough money, he bought equipment to start logging in a more professional and efficient manner, selling his logs to local buyers. Pete obtained a list of international lumber contacts, and was able to persuade, German, Japanese, Italian, Swedish and Dutch companies, to buy logs from him. At one point, 85 percent of the red elm that left the USA was sold by Pete.

As railroads started to consolidate in the 1970s, Pete saw a new business opportunity. He designed a machine he called a rail sled. His brother, Owen, built it from Pete's design, and it worked well enough that he was able to buy up old railroad lines, and salvage the railroad ties, rails, and even the gravel bed, salvaging a mile of track per day. Pete retired in 1989. He then renovated the buildings that previously housed his timber and salvage business, into storage buildings that he still rents out to this day. He then began to build homes and duplexes on his land, South of Anamosa. In 1993, he formed a neighborhood association that has more than 50 families living there today. Never one to be idle, Pete kept one of his original dump trucks. He used it to deliver black dirt he sold from his property.