Dr. Oliver J.C. Francis

FRANCIS, MARKS

Posted By: Mary Welty Hart (email)
Date: 3/21/2006 at 22:32:53

Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
November 29, 2000

DR. OLIVER FRANCIS, Winterset

Dr. Oliver J. C. Francis, 70, of Winterset died of cancer Nov. 22, 2000, at the Peosta home of his son.

Funeral services were held Tuesday, Nov. 28, at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshalltown, of which he was a former resident. Burial was at Riverside Cemetery, also in Marshalltown.

Dr. Francis was born Jan. 28, 1930, in St. Andrew, Jamaica, to David and Pertina (Marks) Francis. He received his bachelor of science degree in mathematics and statistics with honors in 1952 from the University of London. He later received his master's degree in economics and statistics from Iowa State University in Ames. At the University of the West Indies from 1957-58, he was a Research Fellow. In 1958, he began his education as a Population Council Fellow, Fulbright Scholar, at the University of Chicago, with post-graduate studies in international economics, development and labor economics at Iowa State University.

With his educational background in economics and statistics, Dr. Francis's career involved working with several governments, including Jamaica, Guyana, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somali and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He also had lectured at the University of London, was a Manpower specialist for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development at the World Bank in Washington, D. C., and was involved for many years with the International Labor Organization (a part of the United Nations).

He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Marshalltown and the First United Presbyterian Church in Winterset where he served as a Sunday school teacher, elder and commissioner of Presbytery for the General Assembly. Dr. Francis also was a past president of the Winterset Lions Club and was president-elect of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees in Winterset.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Ellen, a brother and two sisters.

He is survived by a son, Geoffrey Francis (wife Susan) of Peosta; and a daughter Gayla Francis of Farmington, Conn.

Funeral arrangements were handled by Estel-Perrin-Avey Funeral Home in Marshalltown.