of Gravity

Lenox Time Table, Lenox, Iowa Wednesday July 16, 2003

Pfander, Cloyd William - Funeral services for Cloyd W. Pfander, age 103 of Bedford, who died Tuesday, July 8, 2003 at the Bedford Nursing and Rehab

Center were held Saturday, July 12, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. at the Ritchie Funeral Home with Pastor Tim Maxa officiating. Interment was held in the Washington Cemetery in Gravity. Memorials can be directed to the Bedford Volunteer Fire Department or the Bedford Ambulance Service. Arrangements were entrusted to the Ritchie Funeral Home of Bedford.

Cloyd William Pfander was born July 21, 1899, in Page County, Iowa the son of William Henry Pfander and Olpha Eleanor Cree Pfander. When Cloyd was three, the family moved to a farm near Sharpsburg where he attended rural school. On November 4, 1922, he was united in marriage with Neva Whipple. To this loving union seven children were born.

The couple lived in the Sharpsburg and Gravity communities where they farmed and raised livestock. Cloyd farmed for much of his life when farming was more difficult than it is today, but it was a lifestyle he embraced. He farmed nearly 200 acres with horses until the mid 1940's when he got his first tractor, a Case.

Education was important to Cloyd and Neva and they made sure all of their kids graduated from high school. They were also very active in supporting their children's school activities.

In 1976, the couple moved to Bedford. They celebrated their 50th, 60th and 65th Wedding Anniversaries before Neva’s death in 1988. Although retired, Cloyd kept active. He even mowed his yard on his 100th birthday.

He was a long-time member of the Sharpsburg Presbyterian Church and had been a school board member of Marshall County School No. 4. On July 8, 2003, Cloyd passed away, at the Bedford Nursing and Rehab Center where he lived since December of 2002, just 13 days short of his 104th birthday.

Left to cherish Cloyd's memory are his seven children, Lorna Hall and husband Richard of Long Beach, California; Horace Pfander and wife Betty of Bedford; Maxine Bates and husband Richard of Coon Rapids, Minnesota; Melvin Pfander of Sharpsburg; Betty Robertson and husband Joe of Belton, Missouri; Berneice Allen and husband Gerald of St. Joseph, Missouri; and Eloise Cunningham and husband Gary; seventeen grandchildren; twenty-nine great-grandchildren; one great-great grandson; a large number of nieces and nephews and many friends.

Preceding Cloyd in death are his parents, his wife Neva, a grandson Steve Pfander and a great-grandson David Jordan. 

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