Hoffman, Ray Albert Jr. 1930-2022

HOFFMAN, GODFREY, BOECHER, BROWN

Posted By: Doris Hoffman, Volunteer (email)
Date: 6/20/2022 at 15:13:07

Ray A. Hoffman Jr, 91, of Westfield, Iowa, passed away on Sunday, June 5, 2022 at the Akron Care Center in Akron, Iowa.

Funeral service will be 11:00 a.m. Friday, June 10, 2022 at the Westfield Congregational Church in Westfield, Iowa. Lunch will follow funeral in the church hall with burial to follow at Pleasant Valley Cemetery - Adaville, rural Merrill, Iowa. Visitation with the family present will be from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 9, 2022 at Rexwinkel Funeral Home in Akron. Visitation will resume from 10:00 a.m. until service time on Friday at the church. Arrangements are with the Rexwinkel Funeral Home in Akron.

In humble beginnings, Ray Albert Hoffman Jr. was born at home on December 15, 1930 at the start of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl days of Iowa to parents Ray Albert Sr. and Marie (Godfrey) Hoffman of rural Westfield. He was the smallest of all seven babies born in his family, but grew up strong following the most admired man of his lifetime, his father, of which he always said he was honored to bear his name. From early days, born into farming, there was nothing in this world he knew he would rather do and going to country school was something he endured--but never enjoyed, although he made some lifetime friends there. A dedicated teacher, Kathryn Banks, told him after he had been gone for several weeks helping with the harvest that she had never had a student not complete his eighth-grade graduation, and he wasn’t going to be the first! He always admired her for the extra time and effort she gave of herself to see her students through.

Ray first met his bride, DeLoris Boecher, at the Tomba Ballroom of Sioux City. They married four months later on July 18, 1954 and lived on the first farm place that Ray rented when he was a young man. Early in their marriage, they suffered the great tragedy of the loss of their first born daughter, Mary Lee, by a farm accident that he carried upon his shoulders all the days of his life. They went on to have four other girls, Donna (David) Call of Spencer, Diane (Ted) Feldhacker of LeMars, Doris (Jim) Snow of Rapid City, SD, and Darlene Rae Hoffman of Alton, IA.

Ray’s dream of buying his first farm finally came true in January of 1963. They worked hard as young couples do, pinching the pennies and stretching the dollars, but the economy was giving farmers good prices on their corn and livestock, and they were also able to buy their first new car as well. There were many prosperous years around that time. Days pass into months which pass into years, and after all daughters had married and left home, Ray and DeLoris divorced in July of 1985.

Ray stayed busy with farming, restoring antique tractors, as well as enjoying card games (especially pinochle), family picnics, country music (the true old-time classics—not the new pretend kind), and tractor pulls, of which he even held a few of his own called Old Iron Days when they weren’t doing many anymore. He also had the proclivity to drop in on family and neighbors for a cup of coffee and a laugh whenever and was never refused. He loved the drop-in especially around meal and snack time!

As the years passed on, he had a great desire to belong to a church, and was encouraged by his nephew, Jim, to join the Westfield Congregational. He was welcomed with open arms and felt at home there. He also met his future bride, Betty Mary Brown, and they married on December 29, 2001, his parents’ anniversary date. They had 20 joyous years together filled with lots of love and laughter.

He enjoyed life with great laughter and enthusiasm and rested from his labor in the early hours on June 5th, 2022 at the age of 91, breaking the record of the Hoffman men that preceded him. In all the world, there was no place as wonderful to him as Akron/Westfield.

Besides his wife, daughters, 12 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren, he is survived by his brother, Ken (Katherine) Hoffman of Westfield, his brother Don Hoffman of Akron, and his sister, Betty Ann Van Wyk of Ireton, and many nieces & nephews, (even great great great of them!)

He was preceded in death by his parents, his brother Lloyd E. "Gene", his sister Ida and her husband Lloyd Searls and two nephews Larry and Ron, his sister Goldie and her husband Art Friskie and a niece, DeLoris, his brother in law, John Van Wyk and nephew, Kenny, his precious niece, Karen (Hoffman) Watterson, his nephew Donny Wayne Hoffman, and his never forgotten daughter, Mary Lee.

With love always, Your 4 D’s.