Nate L. Tedrow Sr., 88

Nate L. Tedrow Sr., 88, of Kennard, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, at Memorial Community Hospital in Blair after a lingering illness.

Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 9, at the Fremont Church of the Nazarene in Fremont. Military rites will follow in the church parking lot.

Visitation will begin Thursday at 1 p.m. at Campbell-Aman Funeral Home in Blair with the family receiving friends from 5 to 8 p.m. Interment will be at 2 p.m. Friday at the Crescent (Iowa) Township Cemetery.

Nate L. Tedrow Sr., was born Feb. 11, 1923, in Boone, Iowa, to Nathaniel and Bertha (Tayson) Tedrow. He grew up in Boone and graduated from Boone High School in 1942. On Feb. 13, 1943, he was drafted into the Army Air Corps. He served three years, two months and 22 days, of which 17 months were served in Agra, India, in the China-Burma-India theatre. He was honorably discharged as a sergeant on April 27, 1946.

After his service in the military, he attended Boone Junior College for one year. He married DeLores (Fisher) Stokka on May 21, 1947, at the Methodist Church in Valley where the couple lived until moving to Fremont in 1950. On Aug. 4, 1947, he began employment at Valley Manufacturing Company, now Valmont Industries, where he worked as a welder, then supervisor, for 38 years. He also was head of the Galvanizing Department. He retired from Valmont on Dec. 12, 1985.

As an ambitious individual, he went to work for Rozanek and Sons Mortuary in Fremont, where he worked for 13 1/2 years. Even then, he wanted more to keep him busy so he went to work at Midland Lutheran College as a night custodian for 10 years. His declining health necessitated him leaving the more demanding jobs, so he did lawn and garden services for six prominent families in Fremont. Yard work was his favorite hobby.

He enjoyed golf and was on a golf league for many years at White Tail Run. Other hobbies were collecting golf balls and pens. He was an avid river fisherman, and in earlier years he enjoyed hunting. He also enjoyed embroidery and learned to crochet in his 70s. Other hobbies were paint-by-number painting and model building; he even built a wooden ship.

He was a member of the Fremont Volunteer Fire Department, was on various bowling leagues, and was a member of Fremont's VFW Post. He was a member of the Fremont Church of the Nazarene where he served as an usher and spent countless hours sweeping up all the construction debris during the building of the new church.

As his and his wife's health continued to deteriorate, the couple moved in with their daughter and son-in-law in Kennard. Mr. Tedrow joined the VFW Post in Arlington. While living in Kennard, his favorite thing to do was riding the John Deere and mowing the yard. He loved being outdoors, planting flowers and weeding the gardens.

On June 16, 2011, Mr. Tedrow was inducted into the Nebraska Christian Heritage Fatherhood Hall of Fame in Lincoln. He was one of 11 finalists out of 173 entries for the Father of the Year competition. The presentation was made to him by Lt. Governor Rich Sheehy.

He will be remembered for the caring and concern that he had for people and was a man of great integrity. The great works of his life will not be found on any Google search; they are found in his legacy. His skill level at any task was amazing; there wasn't anything he couldn't do. He was a loyal, loving, giving, generous man, who gave when he had nothing to give, loved when love was all he had, lived with happiness, joy and the Lord in his heart. He never met a person he couldn't have a conversation with and he had a great way of making each person feel important and loved.

He is survived by sons and daughter-in-law, Michael and Sandra Stokka of Mankato, Minn., and Nate Tedrow Jr. of Omaha; daughter and son-in-law, Kathy and Howard Kofoed of Kennard; 11 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

He was preceded in death by his wife, DeLores, in August 2008; and brother, Charles.