Abbey, Robert “Gene” (1926-2005)

ABBEY, ANDERSON, OHLMANN, KLIPPING, MCKEE, LAMPMAN, STERN

Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 8/20/2012 at 10:06:20

Robert “Gene” Abbey
August 30, 1926 – October 10, 2005

Born on August 30, 1926, to Bertus Claron and Minnie Rose Anderson Abbey on the farm where he lived his entire life, Gene was baptized and confirmed at the Asbury Methodist Church in Lake Mills, Iowa.

He went to Delano Country School, Center Township, for eight years and graduated from Lake Mills Public School in 1943.

On December 18, 1955, Gene married Valeda Ohlmann of Thompson, Iowa, at Zion Lutheran Church in Thompson.

As a young man, Gene liked to hunt, trap, and look for Indian arrowheads. He also picked potatoes for a neighbor and snapped sweet corn by hand for the Cool Spring Canning Company. He learned to fly a Piper Cub airplane and earned his pilot’s license. A life-long farmer, he worked for the government for forty years measuring corn bins and government diverted farm acres. He also served as a 4-H Leader for the Center Cougars for a number of years. After he retired from farming, he delivered Winnebago motor homes.

Gene is survived by his wife of nearly fifty years, Valeda Abbey; his daughter, Carol Abbey, of Leominster, Massachusetts; his granddaughters, Allison Klipping, of Delaware, Ohio, and Erica Klipping, of Lexington, Kentucky; his grandsons, Scott and Drake Abbey, of Lake Mills, Iowa, and special family friends, Brad and Darla Evenson, Amelia and Hannah; his sisters, Marjorie McKee, of Duluth, Minnesota, and Wilma Lampman, and her husband, Duncan, of Carterville, Illinois; his sister-in-law, Rosetta Stern, and her husband, Russel, of Sun City, Arizona; and his brothers-in-law, Gary Ohlmann, and his wife, Karen, of Albert Lea, Minnesota, and Roy Ohlmann, and his wife, Beverly, of Shakopee, Minnesota.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his son, John Charles, in 1994.

Copyright © 2005, Petersen Lund Funeral Home