Ula Jean (Rhinehart) Read (1926-2017)

READ, RHINEHART, WYLIE, OLINGHOUSE, JACKSON, MEARS, RUMSEY, DENIO, KIX, MEMMER, WILSON, WHITMEY, FROHWAIN

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 2/4/2017 at 11:47:37

From Grandon Funeral and Cremation Care obituary, Ames, Story County, Iowa:

Ula Jean Rhinehart Read - 1926-2017

Dear Friends (from Al, readaa@mchsi.com)

Early Thursday morning, January 12, 2017, at Israel House in Ames, we lost Ula Jean Read, 90, and mother, great grandmother, and friend after several weeks of declining health.

A gathering is planned for Saturday, March 18, 2017, 1:00-4:00 PM, at the Village Coop of Ames, 2525 Bobcat Dr, Ames, with a Celebration of Life service scheduled to be conducted by her grandson,
Pastor Matthew Read, at 1:30. In keeping with her feelings that a deceased still has more to give than simply being buried or cremated, her body has been donated to the Des Moines University Body Donor Program for medical education and research.

Ula Jean, or Jean, as she was better known in later years, was born to Gene and Noami (Wylie) Rhinehart in the early hours of the morning of March 20, 1926 in Brooklyn, Iowa, in the dining room of her maternal grandparents, Robert and Ethyl Wylie, with light provided by a kerosene lamp held by her maternal grandfather. She grew up on a farm near Brooklyn and attended the local public schools graduating from the Brooklyn High School in 1944. Her greatest interest was in singing: solo, trio and choir. One exciting event was being selected to go to Ames and sing solo on WOI radio. Her interest in individual vocal music lasted a lifetime.

On Christmas Eve Day, 1946, Jean was joined in marriage to Alvin Ashley Read of Brooklyn, a rekindled romance with a "boy" she had dated occasionally years earlier. At the time, Jean was teaching a one-room rural school (permitted at the time with a high school Normal Training Certificate) and Al was a returning veteran attending Iowa State College on the GI Bill.

After Jean's teaching year was over, she joined Al in Ames which was to become their new home town for the next 70 years and where their five children were born. With five children, Jean undertook the role (which was possible in those days) of being a "stay-at-home" mom although on occasions she took part time "sales person" jobs or one with Collegiate Manufacturing to sew college beanie hats at home to help buy that always needed "new pair of shoes." When the children grew older, she also took some classes on a part time basis at Iowa State University.

To Jean, her family was foremost. She often said "I'm growing my own best friends." The feeling was mutual. Jean was preceded in death by her parents, her only brother, Gaylon, and her son, Randal.

She is survived by her husband, Alvin, of 70 years, four children and her daughter-in-law: Terry Read from California; Richard (Sheri) Read from Roland, Iowa; Robert Read from Virginia; Marsha (Mark) Olinghouse from Ankeny, Iowa; and Randal's widow Lyrio Cloma Read from Des Moines, Iowa. She is also survived by six grandchildren and six great grandchildren: Terry "Marc" (Jennifer) Read and children Mason and Drake from Texas; Matthew (Jill) Read and children Jacob, Katey, Anna and Daniel, from Onslow, Iowa; Jonathan (Elizabeth) Jackson from Tempe, Arizona; Erika (Brandon) Mears and soon-to-be seventh great grandchild from Elgin, Illinois; Heather Rumsey from Ankeny, Iowa; Tomas Read from Des Moines, Iowa. There are also six step-grand children: Jason, Daniel and David Olinghouse; Heidi DeNio, Hope Kix and Barrett Frohwein; and ten step great grandchildren: McKayla, Madylynne and Sophia DeNio; Olivia, Alyssa and Nile Kix; Leighton Memmer, McKenzie Wilson, Jake Whitney and Isabelle Frohwain.

For many years, Jean was a member of the Ames Sweet Adelines, always belonging to a quartet and always interested in attending conventions and competing against quartets from other areas. Her ability as a seamstress and at color coordination made her always wanted on the show and costume committees. During their many years, together, Jean and Al were able to take advantage of countless opportunities that provided them and their family unique experiences and many a fond memory. In everything, Jean was an active participant. A few of the out-of-the-ordinary experiences and memories in Jean's life:

-- The addition to her family of Lyrio Cloma, the pre-teen Filipino girl that for two years lived directly across the street in Makati, the Philippines, and daily played with Marsha and Randy, when, nearly 25 years later, Randy and Lyrio were married and set up their home in Des Moines.
-- The opportunity over the years to have visited all except three of our fifty American states and nine of the Canadian provinces, many several times and at different times of the year, as well as Mexico City.
-- The opportunity, while her kids were still small, to spend a summer living in what one now calls Silicon Valley and exploring the environs of California and the places along the way between Ames and California including the Northern Idaho game reserve that a couple decades before had been Al's navy boot camp. -- Visiting Nagasaki in Japan, the site of the second atomic bomb, where in 1945 Al's ship had helped deliver American occupation troops. In Nagasaki, a supposed bomb survivor and a great story teller named Charlie, who, in retirement, stayed around the hotel to serve visitors as a personal tour guide, fascinated everyone with his stories of his life, his family and old Japan.
-- The opportunity, during Al's two-year stint at the University of the Philippines, to live in a foreign country and a foreign culture and for her and her family to experience the personal social and cultural growth that stay offered.
-- Visiting by longboat, a Sea-Gypsy cemetery on a small island off the coast of Zamboanga, a largely Muslim city on the far southwestern leg of Mindanao, with Al and Jean wondering, as it began the get stormy and the sea began to get rough, "What are we doing here--"
-- Partaking in a meal of Bird Nest Soup, a famous regional delicacy in North Borneo, with Jean and son Rick expressing their doubts after originally agreeing.
-- Sitting at a table in the home of the Dyak tribal chief (Rick says Witch Doctor) of a village of bamboo long houses in Sarawak, Borneo, being served rice wine with Rick switching cups with his dad whenever he thought his dad was not looking and with the old chief getting a great kick out of it. A couple hundred years ago the Dyak people were head-hunters, who, commanded by Muslim Malay officers, served in the crews for the infamous Borneo pirates. The Malays got the loot, the Dyaks got the heads.
-- Visiting with her family the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thomruins of the great Khmer Empire in Cambodia only shortly before Cambodia became "The Killing Field."
-- The strange feeling of flying in the comfort of a modern passenger airliner over Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War, knowing your firstborn was down there somewhere.
-- The fascination of driving through, rather than flying over, the "Open Zoo" that was rural India at the time.
-- Admiring the huge complex of ruins at Baalbek, Lebanon, said by some to be the best preserved of Roman ruins, better preserved than those in Rome itself, and now excluded from visitation by the turmoil of the Middle East.
-- After meeting her at a fashion show, the owner of the sponsoring modeling agency appealed to Jean to join them, stressing her great need for older people. Under immense pressure from her two teenage granddaughters for Grandma to join them, she agreed and did a number of "gigs." One was as an Alzheimer patient that was broadcast. Later meeting a friend on the street, the friend, believing the ad real, exclaimed "JEAN! YOU'RE OUT!."
-- The awe that comes with the simple realization that you, a country girl from a small Iowa town, have had the good fortune to have been able to visit over forty different countries and more than that number of cultures around the world and in many instances being able to take your children with you.

To honor Jean and to support future "Jeans" in their early solo vocal efforts, the family plans to contact the BGM school system in Brooklyn about a contribution to a Ula Jean Read Solo Music Fund in the High School. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the BGM Ula Jean Read Solo Music Fund, 2525 Bobcat Dr, #317, Ames, IA 50014-8424 with any checks payable to A. A. Read.

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