Richard “Dick” LeRoy Engel, 84, of Atlantic, Iowa, passed away Thursday, July 12, 2018, at Atlantic Specialty Care in Atlantic.
Dick was born December 1, 1933, in Washington, Nebraska, the son of LeRoy and Roma (Gottsch) Engel. He attended a one-room school and graduated at 17 from Benson High School in Omaha, Nebraska, with the class of 1951. Dick worked for Union Pacific Railroad long enough to buy his first car and drove to Chicago, Illinois, lived at the YMCA, worked as a soda fountain clerk and danced at the Aragon Ballroom to many famous bands. He returned to Nebraska and met and married Geneva Lily. They had four beautiful daughters, Julie, Carolee, Jennifer, and Laura. Dick was proud and loved his daughters very much. Those first married years, he served in the United States Navy on the USS Gilligan DE 508, and was honored to serve his country.
He was a man who had many different jobs over his lifetime and learned at each one. He ended up with his own business building homes and doing home improvement and repairs. He did jobs including bookkeeping, cleaning gas tanks, selling yellow pages, selling real estate in Omaha, building homes, building prefab homes and farm silos.
In the winter of 1986 he met Sharon Elsberry-Kendall and they were united in marriage in 1991. They met at his favorite place to dance where they danced and danced! This combined family now consisted of 6 children, 10 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.
Dick built a home in Norwalk and had a 1 ½ acre garden. Of course his vegetable and flower gardens varied in size. Then he retired and they moved to Missouri. They purchased a home with an apple orchard and he built another home next to it that had gardens for all sorts of plants. Both were busy from dawn to dusk and were very happy. They returned to Iowa in 2003 to be closer to family as they were starting to get older.
He was preceded in death by his parents, LeRoy and Roma; son, Terry Lee Kendall and his aunts and uncles.
Dick is survived by his wife, Sharon Engel; his daughters, Julie Engel and her son, Brandon (Ashley) Wagoner, Carolee Engel, Jennifer (Gene) Holaday, and Laura (Tim) Davis and their children, Spencer, TJ, Ashleigh and her son Oakley, and Alicia (Ryan) Olson; son, Steven (Alisa) Kendall and their children, Deidra (Melissa) Kendall and Matt (Christy) Kendall and their son Jasper; granddaughters, Sheila Kendall and her children Karma and Kinnick Remele, Stephanie (Jayme) Kramer and their daughters, Ella and Emma, and Amber Kendall and her children Haylee and Jeffrey Roberts, Jr.; other relatives and many friends.
Memorial services will be at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, July 14, 2018, at Hockenberry Family Care in Atlantic, Iowa. A private interment of cremains will take place in the German Cemetery in Bennington, NE, at a later date.
There is no scheduled visitation but people can visit with family at a lunch in Hockenberry's community room following the service.
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