12/10/1993
Services for Ira Dee Ward, 83, Mason City, who died on Dec. 10, 1993, at the Good Shepherd Care Center in Mason City, will be Jan. 23, 1994, at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Mason City. The body was cremated.
Ira D. Ward was born on Feb. 20, 1910, in rural Marion County, the son of Ira Asbury and Elsie May (Smith) Ward.
Dee graduated from Knoxville High School and attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids. On Nov. 30, 1933, he was married to Bernice Heaton in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Dee worked for the Pine Loan Company in Knoxville and Allis Chalmers Farm Machinery Company in Grinnell, Newton and Tipton. He was co-owner of the Bingley Ward Sale Barn in Knoxville for several years. He then went to work as a salesman and Regional Manager for New Holland Machinery in Des Moines.
He lived and worked as a sales man in Mason City from 1956-1958, in Des Moines from 1958-1963 and in Davenport from 1963 to 1978. He then returned to Mason City and was the owner of the Back
Door Laundromat and Briar and Bow Pipe Shop, both in the Willowbrook Mall in Mason City.
He retired in 1980. Dee was a member of the Masonic Order and held membership in Cedar Lodge No. 11 in Tipton, Davenport Scottish Rite Consistory and Kaaba Shrine, both in Davenport, and the North Iowa Shrine Club.
During his business years in Mason City, he was a member and secretary of the Mason Rotary Club. He also worked as an auctioneer and frequently volunteered his skills for community fundraisers. He was preceded in death by his parents and his wife in 1980.
Survivors include one daughter, Susan Dee Fisher of Mason City; one son, Larry Douglas Ward of Spokane, Wash.; eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Memorials may be made to the Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children Twin Cities Unit or to the family at 704 East State Street, Mason City, Iowa, 50401.
The Major-Erickson Funeral Home in Mason City was in charge of the arrangements.