Owen Edward BATESON

BATESON, EVANS, ALBERTSON, REEGER, KRUGER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 9/18/2007 at 10:09:28

OWEN EDWARD BATESON -- Belmond
We celebrate the life of Owen Edward Bateson who went to be with the Lord on Friday September 14, 2007. Funeral services for Owen E. Bateson will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday September 18, 2007 at the United Methodist Church in Belmond. Pastor Mike Druhl will officiate. Burial will take place in the Belmond Cemetery. Military Rites will be conducted by the Belmond Honor Guard. Visitation for Owen E. Bateson will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday September 17, 2007 at the Dugger Ewing Funeral Home, 111 Luick's Lane South in Belmond and one hour prior to services at the church.

He was born on April 21, 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Joseph Robert and Sarah Evans Bateson. He had two brothers, Clarence and Clifford Bateson. He graduated from Fifth Avenue High School in 1937 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October 1939. He proudly served his country on the U.S.S. Ranger and as an aircraft turret gunner in the Pacific theater. He was honorably discharged at the end of World War II and entered William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri where he received his Bachelor's Degree in Education. In 1947, he married Doris Bee Albertson of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, who remains his devoted wife of sixty years. He earned his Masters Degree in Education from Drake University in 1954.He loved children and was principal, coach and teacher at Weldon, Madrid, Tabor, Hamburg, Coon Rapids, and Gray, Iowa. In 1964 he and his family moved to Belmond, Iowa where he was principal of Belmond Elementary and Junior High for nine years. In 1973 he became a special agent with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, achieving recognition as a member of The Million Dollar Round Table. He served his community well as President of the Lions Club, Commander of the VFW and a faithful member of Belmond United Methodist Church where he sang in the choir for thirty years. He was known for being an active man, never one for sitting, and was always busy, enjoying hunting, fishing, golf and tennis. After his oldest son Brian made him a replica of a PVI Ventura, the plane he flew in World War II in the South Pacific, Owen was inspired to make models of the plane himself. He devoted countless hours to this project and constructed nearly one hundred copies of that plane. He honored each of the surviving members of his squadron with a replica to commemorate their service to our country.

Owen was a devoted husband and father who will be greatly missed and always loved by his wife, Doris Bee; daughter Susan; sons, Brian and Robert; and daughters-in-law Janet and Sue. He was a wonderful grandfather to Brian's children Brea and Blake, and Robert's children James (wife Natalia), Jill and Julie. He was blessed to be the great grandfather of Zachary, Isaac, Soleis, and Sienna, the children of Brea and her husband Rob Reeger and Alexander, the son of Jill and her husband Sam Kruger. He is preceded in death by his parents and two brothers.

Des Moines Register, The (IA)
September 17, 2007