06/28/2024
Sharon Beth (Roberts) Hutchings, age 81, of Des Moines, Iowa passed away on Friday, June 28, 2024.
Sharon Beth Roberts was born on January 1, 1943, in Chariton, IA. She was the first child of Lee Roberts and Kathleen Wilson Roberts.
A little sister, Gini, was born 5 years later. As a toddler, Sharon and her mother joined her dad in Coeur d’Alene, ID while Lee attended military training, then she and her mother returned to Iowa and lived with her grandmother while he served in the Navy near the end of WWII. She attended country school in Columbia, IA, then graduated from Knoxville High School in 1961.
Her father owned a general store in Columbia, where Sharon, at a very early age, learned to clerk, take orders, stock shelves, and wait on customers. She also helped her grandmother run a lunch counter, where she honed her sharp wit and quick comebacks when the farmers who came to eat teased her.
While helping her father run a concession stand at the Belinda Ballpark, she met a handsome, young Elvis look-alike named Robert Hutchings. They dated while she attended AIB in Des Moines to become a keypunch operator–a skill she put to use for multiple employers, including Pioneer Seed Co. According to Bob, one of her most impressive skills during their dating years was that she could pour sloe gin into a bottle of strawberry soda while he was driving 120 mph down the highway (hopefully the statute of limitations has expired on that confession).
They married on July 7th, 1963, and briefly lived in Knoxville before settling in Pleasantville for nearly 60 years. Their two boys, Scott and Brent, were raised on Columbus Street, where everyone in town gathered for countless games of sand volleyball. While the boys were young, Sharon ran a cake-baking business out of their home, making everything from children’s birthday cakes to more risqué confections.
In Pleasantville, Sharon gathered a posse of fun-loving girlfriends, and together they had many adventures. They took turns babysitting each other’s children, spent a lot of time doing arts and crafts, and even started a craft business called “Three’s Country.” They took trips together, including stops in New York, Las Vegas, and Arkansas, learned to line dance together in Memorial Hall, and invented a satirical annual beauty contest entitled “Ms. Mature,” which became more outrageous every year.
Sharon and Bob became members of a camping group that spent decades together at Lake Red Rock. Late nights around the campfire bonded their friendships for life; as each person retired from the campfire, they were serenaded with a round of “Good Night Irene.”
Sharon made a career for herself as a rural mail carrier in the Knoxville and Pleasantville areas, with a reputation for being fearless, feisty, and funny. If you ask her what she loved most about her life, she would have said “Being a Mom and a Grandma.” Sharon and Bob hosted all four grandkids on many weekends, letting them paint at their kitchen table, having bonfires in the backyard, and teaching them how to play poker. They could always count on her unwavering support as she cheered them on in the stands for countless games, meets, and concerts throughout the years.
Sharon established a tradition of visiting her aunt and cousins in Florida every spring, and it was a respite that she cherished. Sharon’s social nature propelled her through life and she never stopped making new friends including some very special people she met in assisted living.
Sharon passed away at Kavanagh House in Des Moines, IA on June 28, 2024. Sharon was preceded in death by her parents, Lee and Kay, mother-in-law, Elzene (Montgomery) Hutchings, father-in-law, Jay B. Hutchings, and brother-in-law, Monty Hutchings.
Left to cherish Sharon’s memory are her husband, Bob; sons: Scott & Deb (Hotovec) of Pleasantville and Brent & Darcy (Ross) of Boone; grandchildren: Tessa, Casey, Josie, and Joey; sisters: Virginia & Jeremy Tupper of Seattle; sisters-in-law: Vicky & Jim Greeley and Sharon Hutchings; brother-in-law: Rick & Jeannie Hutchings; nephews: Monte Brian & Cindy Hutchings, Sye Peterson, Jeremy & Ashlee Hutchings, and Curt Greeley & Jaimie Bell; nieces: Marci & Jimmy Tyree, Stacie & Jamie Kent, and Alicia & Josh Pettyjohn; as well as many cousins, great nieces and nephews, other relatives, and friends.
A celebration of life will be held on August 10th, 2024 from 4-8 at Memorial Hall in Pleasantville. Instead of flowers, the family requests donations to the Lewy Body Dementia Association at https://www.lbda.org/donate.