William Wesley Kitchell

KITCHELL, EDWARDS, DIMMITT, FOVAL

Posted By: Mary Welty Hart (email)
Date: 7/8/2006 at 20:43:53

Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
December 28, 2005

WESLEY KITCHELL, Perry

William Wesley Kitchell, 91, died Dec. 18, 2005, at the Rowley Masonic Home in Perry.

A memorial service to honor his life was held Thursday, Dec. 22, at Westover Funeral Home in Des Moines. Private burial of the cremains was held at Resthaven Mausoleum in West Des Moines.

Wes Kitchell was born Oct. 25, 1914, to James Albert and Linnie Mae (Edwards) Kitchell of Baxter. He was a 1933 graduate of Winterset High School and a 1937 graduate of Iowa State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in animal husbandry. In 1942, he married Edith Dimmitt in Ottumwa. They moved to Des Moines in 1949, where Wes was self-employed with a division of Professional Risk Management, known as W.W. Kitchell, Inc., of which he owned and was president for more than 42 years, retiring in 1984. He was a member and elder of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Acanthus Masonic Lodge and Hi-12 Club No. 4, of which he served as president. He also was a member of the Seminar Coordinate of SCORE–Des Moines Chapter 5 and the Za-Ga-Zig Shriners. He was a founder of the Old Cronies Birthday Club, a volunteer for many years at the former Mercy Hospital in Des Moines and a Za-Ga-Zig Shrine Hospital sponsor. In 1991, he and his wife moved to Bella Vista, Ark. He had been a resident of the Masonic Home in Perry since 2002.

He was preceded in death by a sister, Mary.

He is survived by his wife, Edith, of Bella Vista, Ark.; one daughter, Janet S. Foval of Madison, Wis.; one son, Ronald Kitchell of West Des Moines; and three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.