Jack Elliott

Jack Dennis Elliott, 89, passed away April 22, 2017 at the Madrid Home in Madrid, Iowa. Funeral services will be at 11:00 a.m., Monday, May 8, 2017, at Ankeny Funeral Home (1510 W. First St. Ankeny, IA 50023). Visitation will be held one hour prior to the services. Burial will take place at 2:30 p.m., at Garden Grove Cemetery in Garden Grove, Iowa.

Jack lived a full and active life of service. He was born August 1, 1927 on his family’s farm by Eagleville, Mo. He later moved with his parents to the Garden Grove, IA community where he graduated from high school and met his wife, Josephine Laughlin. Jack served 19 months with the Army Air Corp and Signal Corp in Germany in WWII.

He returned to earn an FCC license, then purchased and ran a furniture & appliance store in Garden Grove. In 1952 he moved to Des Moines to work for the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company for 27 years. He lived in Des Moines, Madison, WI, Cedar Rapids, IA and retired as a General Engineering supervisor in Omaha, NE. Through his retirement he lived in Ouray, Colorado, Tucson, AZ, and finally Ankeny, IA.

Jack was baptized as an infant in the Eagleville Methodist church. He accepted Christ as his savior at the age of 14 at the High Point Methodist Church, and experienced baptism by emersion in the Jordan River in Israel in 1975. He taught Sunday School at the Garden Grove Methodist Church and also served on the board. He served as an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church, as well as in Cedar Rapids. He served as a Deacon and then an Elder and the Sunday School superintendent of the large Presbyterian Church of the Cross in Omaha, NE. While in Tucson, AZ he served two terms as the president of the 120 member “King’s Heirs” Fellowship within the El Camino Baptist Church. Upon his return to Ankeny, he became a member of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, hosted Bible Studies and was active there.

Jack also joined the Gideons International in 1970 in Omaha and served in local Camp offices as well as Nebraska State President, VP, and Chaplain. He was on the International Program Planning committee for the Gideons, making trips to India, and served 13 years on the Translation Equipment Committee as their Engineer for design and implementation of communication equipment. He and Josie placed Bibles and handed out many personal New Testaments to workers of all sorts, always with their kind smiles and good sense of humor.

Throughout his life Jack also faithfully loved and served any and all of his family and friends. He loved his siblings, nieces and nephews, his children and grandchildren. He was “Jack of all trades” “Mr.Fix it”. Jack cared for his widowed mother until her death, and wife Josie through 17 years of Parkinson’s disease. In 2015 he experienced a set back in his own health and spent the last year and a half of his life under the tender care of the Madrid Home in Madrid, IA.

Jack has been preceded in death by his Father and Mother, Leo and Ruby Elliott, son Gregory, brother Donald Elliott, and wife Josie. He is survived by his daughter Rebecca (Dr. Michael) McGregor of Ankeny and their 5 children, Mollie (Steve) Osbourn of TX., Rudy (Tiffany) Carrizales of N.C., Zac (Stacie) McGregor of Ankeny, IA and their sons, Jacob and Luke, April (Angel) Gaxiola of Lomita, CA and their 3 children, Nevaeh, Lila and Micah, and Valentine Mojica of Des Moines, IA, a sister, Elaine (Bob) Morris of Ankeny, IA, and sister-in-law Lois Laughlin of Billings, MT. And also beloved nieces and nephews.