GIPE, Charles

GIVE, MOON, GEAUQUE, HODOVAL, BRAZELTON, BASS, WOODFILL

Posted By: Marlene Skalberg (email)
Date: 2/5/2016 at 14:02:19

Death took another prominent farmer and citizen of Mills County when Charles Gipe, 80, died May 18, 1963, following a long illness. Funeral services attended by a very large group of friends were held in the Strahan Methodist Church conducted by the Rev. John A. Lippincott.

Music was furnished by the church choir, an organization in which Mr. Gipe had sang in for many years. They were accompanied by Mrs. Marvin Woodpile, organist. Serving as honorary pall bearers were Otha Wearing, Donald Bell, and Melvin Irvin, with Marvin Woodfill, Joe Hathaway, Lyle Coddington, Sr., Walter Roberts, Jared Woodfill, and Earl Bass were casket bearers.
Mrs. Bass, Mrs. Wearin, Mrs. Hallaway, Mrs. Jared Woodfill, and Mrs. Coddington cared for the flowers. Donald Douglas and Thomas Gipe were ushers.
The Rev. Mr. Lippincott read the following life sketch and tribute.
Charles Gipe, son of Adam and Mary Geauque Gipe, was born April 3, 1883 on the family farm near Strahan. He was educated in the nearby country school and spent the years 1905 and 1906 in Normal College in Shenandoah. On September 18, 1906 he was united in marriage to Bernice Moon of Tabor. To this union were born three children: Marjorie, Emmett, and Everett.
Mr. Gipe and his bride, who preceded him in death, established their home on a portion of the family land where they spent their lives, raising their family and tilling the soil he loved. Mechanically minded, he became a master machinist, building and operating one of the most complete farm shops in southwest Iowa, where he fashioned whatever he needed with the touch of a master. For him, a machine was a challenge to comprehend and control.
Mr. Gipe believed in his family, his church, and community. The home of Charles and Bernice Gipe was a rendezvous for the children of the neighborhood as well as their own. Choral groups and family orchestras made the rafters ring. Charles Gipe was never too rushed to explain a musical score, a mechanical device, or demonstrate his skill as Speneerian penman to a loving child or adult. “He whom children love, the angels will.”
He walked hand in hand with his God to the end of the trail. As a life-long member of the M. E. Church, he did not send his children to services, he took the., through sunshine and storm. He instructed in the Sunday School, he sang in the choir, and he was faithful in attendance. For these humble but important deeds, he will be long remembered. As the poet Shelley would say:
“Rose leaved, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved’s bed,
And so thy thoughts when love art gone,
Love, itself shall slumber on”
Charles Gipe, good American, leaves to mourn him, his three children, Mrs. Marjorie Hodoval of Bellevue, Iowa; Emmett and Everett Gipe of Stahan; six grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren; three sisters, Mrs. T. M. Brazelton of Hastings, Mrs. Zeno Bass of Strahan, Mrs. Morris Woodfill of Glenwood and many other relatives and friends.
Interment was in the Malvern Cemetery with Mansfield Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.
Malvern Leader, May 23, 1963, page 6