Rath, Otto A. 1891-1988

RATH, BLAKELY

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 6/1/2009 at 18:55:46

OTTO A. RATH

Otto A. Rath, 97, of Merrill, and former Sioux City resident, died Friday (Feb. 19, 1988) at a hospital at Encinitas, Calif., after being stricken with an apparent heart attack while vacationing. He was a retired mail carrier.

Funeral was at 10 a.m. Thursday at Trinity Lutheran Church at Hinton. Rev. Jerome Hahn, pastor, and the Rev. Marvin E. Suhr, Lutheran institutional chaplain, officiated. Burial was in Logan Park Cemetery at Sioux City.

Mr. Rath was born Jan. 16, 1891, at Ida Grove, to August and Johanna Rath, and came to Sioux City as a child. He married Alice Blakely July 25, 1914, at Sioux City. He was a cement contractor prior to becoming a mail carrier for 30 years, retiring in 1956. Mrs. Rath died March 20, 1975, at Sioux City.

In 1975 he moved to Merrill to live with his daughter. Mr. Rath was a member of the Mail Carriers Union. Trinity Lutheran Church at Sioux City where he was Sunday school teacher for more than 50 years and sang in the choir.

He was a charter member and organizer of the Ostomy Club. He sang with the Lutheran chaplaincy in Sioux City nursing homes until 1975.

Survivors are a son, William O., of Santa Maria, Calif.; a daughter, Mrs. Dorothy Vaughn, of Merrill; three brothers, Jules of Sioux City, Gus of Austin, Texas, and Ruddy of Albuquerque, N.M.; six grandsons, and four great grandchildren.

~Source: The Hinton newspaper dated, Feb. 1988