Leon Albert Thompson 1916 - 2006

THOMPSON, CURTIS, DALLMAYER, JAMISON, WILSON, FLICKINGER

Posted By: Volunteer
Date: 10/10/2006 at 14:54:45

Leon Albert Thompson, age 90, of rural Letts, Iowa, died Tuesday morning, October 10, 2006, at the Unity Hospital at Muscatine. The son of Albert 'Bert' and Olive 'Ollie' Curtis Thompson, he was born October 6, 1916 in Louisa County. He married Helen Elizabeth Dallmayer on December 21, 1937 at Palmyra, Missouri.

Leon graduated from Grandview High School in 1934. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State Teacher's College in 1938. He taught in high schools for six years in northern Iowa at Hamilton, Marble Rock, and Bode. He was interrupted by WW II and was inducted into the US Army in August of 1944. He completed Officers Candidate School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1945 and served as a Lt. in the Army Medical Administrative Corp at General Hospital at Topeka, Kansas and the Regional Hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas until being discharged in the spring of 1947.

He was engaged in farming and trucking until 1955 when he was invited by a good friend Richard Paine, Superintendent of Letts Consolidated School, to return to teaching. He attended the University of Iowa on Saturdays and summer months and received his Master Degree in Secondary Education in 1959, the year Louisa - Muscatine Community School was formed, and became its first High School Principal, where he served for nineteen years until his retirement in 1978.

Leon spent most of his life in the Grandview area, living in the family home where he was born and raised. He was a longtime member of the Grandview Community Bible Church where he served for fifteen years as a deacon, most of that time as the Chairman of the Church. He taught an adult Sunday School class for twenty-eight years. He was also active in the choir and a men's quartet.

He was a member of the Grandview Community Club where he served as President for a year. He was a long time member of the American Legion Allen Wright Hanft Post 100 of Columbus Junction. Leon enjoyed family, reading, golfing, fishing, and hunting.

He is survived by his wife, Helen; three daughters, Rana & Marvin Jamison of Charlotte, North Carolina, Teresa Wilson of Muscatine, and Denise & Tom Flickinger of Two Rivers, Wisconsin; five grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents; a son-in-law, Donald Wilson; a brother Lawrence; and three sisters, Myrtle, Myrle, and Mildred.

The funeral ceremony for Leon Thompson will be held at 10:30 A.M. on Friday, October 13, 2006, at the Grandview Community Bible Church at Grandview, with Rev. Darryl Erickson officiating. Burial will follow at the Grandview Cemetery with military rites by the Allen Wright Hanft Post 110 American Legion.

Friends may call from noon to 8:00 PM on Friday at the Dudgeon-McCulley Funeral Home at Wapello where the family will meet friends from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

A Memorial Fund has been established for the benefit of the Grandview Community Bible Church.

Dudgeon-McCulley Funeral Home, Wapello, Iowa