Danny Joe Leazer

LEAZER

Posted By: Bill Hansen (email)
Date: 3/4/2020 at 11:51:44

DAN LEAZER FUNERAL SERVICE SET FRIDAY

Services for Danny Joe Leazer, 29, who lost his life in a boat accident on the Des Moines River Sunday morning, will be Friday at the United Methodist Church.

The services will be at 1:30 p.m. with the Rev. Wayne Bartruff officiating. Burial will be in Memorial Lawn Cemetery at Ottumwa.

The family will receive friends at the Raymond Funeral Home from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

Leazer's body was recovered about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday by state conservation officers following a three-day search.

Marvin Story, Van Buren County sheriff, said the body was found floating in the river approximately 1 1/4 miles from Douds.

Danny Joe Leazer was born Sept. 12, 1949, at Ottumwa. He was the son of Floyd S. and Beverly Darlene Majors Leazer.

He was reared and educated in Jefferson County and moved to Great Falls, Montana, at the age of 11. He moved back to Fairfield in 1967. He was married to Wanda Nadene Hille Sept. 5, 1967 at Great Falls prior to his returning to Iowa.

Leazer had served in the U.S. Army and was a member of the Great Falls, Montana, Methodist Church. He had been employed as a machinist at Rockwell International for the past seven years. The family home is at 403 E. Lowe.

Survivors include his widow; two sons, Michael Lynn, 7, and Ryan James, 6, both at home; his father and step-mother, Floyd and Mary Rose Leazer, Great Falls, Mont.; one brother, Charles W. Leazer, Loveland, Colo.; a half-brother, Shane H. Leazer, Great Falls; two half-sisters, Shawna Renee and Stacy Ann Leazer, both of Great Falls; also his grandmother, Edith Leazer, rural Batavia.

The drowning victim ws preceded in death by his mother, an infant sister, his paternal grandfather and maternal grandparents.

The drowning took place Sunday morning while the Leazer family was fishing in the Des Moines River just below the bridge at Selma. The boat capsized while Leazer attempted to restart the stalled motor, dumping all four members of the family into swift water.

The other members of the family made their way to safety, but Leazer disappeared in the river after helping save his sons by putting them in life-jackets and having them cling to the boat.

More recent information concerning the drowning said a dog barking at the riverside home of Jim and Vera Golden played an important part in saving the other members of the family.

When Mrs, Golden heard the dog barking she went to see what was causing the commotion. She saw the two boys about 20 feet from shore floating in the swift current. Clinging to the boat.

Mrs. Golden called her next-door neighbor downstream, Paul Lambert, who put his boat in the river to rescue the boys. By that time the boat to which the boys were clinging had drifted closer to shore and he helped them up the bank.

Mrs. Golden took them to her home, stripped them of their wet clothes and wrapped them in blankets.

The boys informed Lambert their mother and father were in the river, so he rushed back to the riverbank in time to see Mrs. Leazer climb up the bank. She was in shock and unable to walk.

All three members of the family were taken to the Jefferson County Hospital where they were treated and released.

Friends said the father was the only member of the family who could swim. A heavy army jacket he was wearing is believed to become water logged and pull him under.

Lowell Joslin, Libertyville, state conservation officer for Jefferson and Van Buren Counties, was among offers who recovered the body.

---Fairfield Ledger, The (Fairfield, Iowa), Wednesday, September 12, 1979