John Claude Lewis (2013)

LEWIS, MOFFITT, ASHENBRENER, HAMMANS, BERRY, GIBBS, KRAMER, BURNS

Posted By: Mary Welty Hart (email)
Date: 3/7/2013 at 19:06:30

Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
March 06, 2013

JOHN CLAUDE LEWIS, Florida

John Claude Lewis, 98, of Ft. Myers, Fla., died Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, at Gulf Coast Hospital. 

A memorial service was celebrated Saturday, March 2, at Fuller Metz in Cape Coral, Fla. Graveside service provided by Papich-Kuba will take place on Saturday, March 9, at 3 p.m. at the Czechoslovakia National Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

He was born in Madison County, Monroe Township, Iowa, on May 5, 1914, to the late John Clyde and Vernie Estella (Moffitt) Lewis. After graduating from Lorimor High School in 1932 he became the only teacher in a one-room school house, before moving to Cedar Rapids in the late 1930s, when he worked for the Iowa Highway Patrol. He was employed by Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids for 37 years. He was married to Evelyn Ashenbrener on Sept. 28, 1940, in Cedar Rapids. Claude, as he was known in this part of Iowa, served as a radio operator in both World War II and the Korean conflict. Claude obtained his private pilot’s licenses in 1948 and on occasions would fly from Cedar Rapids to the Lorimor area and land in a farmer’s field. John and his wife Evelyn retired to Florida in 1977.
 
He was preceded in death by his wife, Evelyn; his sister, Rowena Hammans; half-brothers, Milo Berry and Herbert Berry; and half-sisters, Ada Gibbs and Anna Kramer. 

Survivors include one son, Gary E. Lewis of Cape Coral, Fla.; one daughter, Linda Burns of Blue Springs, Mo.; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Please visit www.fullermetz.com to view Claude's Life Tribute.