Gordon Lee OPHEIM

OPHEIM, LONNING, ZUPKE, CHATTERTON, HEEREN, MILLER, CARSON, HAMMEL, KRAUS

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 7/14/2009 at 22:44:23

Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA)
June 28, 2008

Gordon Lee Opheim, 75, of Harpers Ferry, Iowa died Thursday, June 26, 2008, at Harmony House Care Center in Waterloo following a lengthy illness. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Old East Paint Creek Lutheran Church in Waterville with Pastor Ken Kimball officiating. Burial will be at Oakland Cemetery, Waukon. Friends may call from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at Martin Funeral Home in Waukon.

Gordon Lee Opheim was born Sept. 23, 1932, in Thor, the son of Selmer G. and Sylvia Imo (Lonning) Opheim. He was baptized and confirmed at Thor Lutheran Church and started attending school in Thor. He moved with his family to Allamakee County, where they began farming on the Upper Iowa River and in Ludlow Township. Gordon graduated from Waukon High School in 1950. After taking a course in heating and cooling, he moved to Cedar Rapids and joined the pipe fitters union and began a career in the operation and design of controls. He worked for several Cedar Rapids firms, including Johnson Controls, where one of his favorite projects was being in charge of installing all the heating and cooling controls at Luther College. He retired in 1994 and moved to Harpers Ferry. Gordon married Bernette Zupke Nov. 21, 1953. They were later divorced. On June 28, 1977, he married Barbara Chatterton Heeren. Gordon was a member of the pipe fitters union in Cedar Rapids for over 40 years. He has been a member of Old East Paint Creek Lutheran Church since 1995. He had a lifelong love of the outdoors and enjoyed fishing, hunting and camping, as well as watching and feeding the wild animals and birds. He played in the Cedar Rapids softball league for several years when he lived there. Gordon enjoyed tending to his lawn and garden and tinkering and fixing things in his basement shop area. He also enjoyed traveling and spent several winters in Florida.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara of Harpers Ferry; two children, Janelle (Kenneth) Miller of Cedar Rapids and David Opheim of Houston; a daughter-in-law, Patricia Opheim of Cedar Rapids; three grandchildren, Ryan Miller, Jill Carson and Kassy Opheim; two great-grandchildren, Kyler and Joshua Carson; four stepchildren, Kathleen (Ralph) Hammel of Dorchester, Gerald Heeren of Avondale, Ariz., Doug (Mary) Heeren of Winfield, Texas, and Maralee (Larry) Kraus of Largo, Fla.; several stepgrand and stepgreat-grandchildren; and two brothers, Ronald (Bonnie) Opheim of Circle Pines, Minn., and James (Mitsue) Opheim of Rio Vista, Calif. He was preceded in death by his parents and a son, Kevin Opheim.