Carl Virgil Blomgren

Carl Blomgren died November 2, 2020, of congestive heart failure. He was 96 years old.

Carl Virgil Blomgren was born in the coal-mining camp of Buxton, Iowa, July 20, 1924. He would be the oldest of six children from Carl Wilhelm Blomgren, a coal miner, and Edna Victoria Olson, both first-generation Swedish immigrants. Carl attended elementary school in Buxton until the family moved to Albia, Iowa, in his junior high years. He was an excellent student as well as a hard-working paper boy for the Des Moines Register, working up to assistant manager while still in high school in Albia.

Too young to enlist after Pear Harbor, Carl continued to work other jobs until his 18th birthday in 1942. He joined the Army Air Corp and was assigned to a repair squadron in the South Pacific. While on leave in Hawaii, he was run over by a jeep and suffered a severe knee injury that required a year of hospitalization and rehabilitation.

With the help of the G.I. Bill he enrolled in civil engineering at Iowa State University and received his B.S. degree in 1949.

His first job was with the state of Iowa bringing clean water programs to rural communities.

He married Margaret Morrow, an elementary school teacher, of Mondamin, Iowa, She died in 1978.

In 1970 he became a charter member and one of the founding fathers of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. He worked in Construction Grants, distributing many millions of dollars to small towns and water districts to bring sewer systems to rural communities in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. He became director of the Air and Water Division and ultimately Water Division Director. He retired in 1995.

In 1982 he married Twyla Dell, also an educator, and welcomed two stepsons, Brennan Dell, 14, and Gavin Dell, 12, into the famiiy. He was a wonderful stepfather to them.

Carl loved to travel and visited destinations as far flung as the North Pole, Brazil, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the very last days of the Soviet Union and all of Europe. He kept up a strong relationship with relatives in Sweden and visited them many times. He also had a strong bond with Hawaii and often visited there as well.

He loved reading the newspaper and listening to the news. He had a wry sense of humor and was an astute student of finance, politics and world affairs. He was beloved by his immediate family and wide circle of friends. Raised a Lutheran, he attended Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, KS, where he was a founding member in the 1980s and attended regularly.

He is survived by his wife Dr. Twyla Dell, stepsons Brennan Dell, wife Genvieve Dell, grandchildren Austin and Zoe, and Gavin Dell, wife Lisa Blanchard Dell and grandchildren Cameron, Jordan and Bruce, sister Betty Johnston and niece the Reverend Dr. Kristin Johnston Largen of Gettysburg, PA, nephew Andrew Johnston of Los Angeles, California, nephews Craig Clark of Belton, MO, and family, and Chris Clark of Wylie, Texas, and family, and niece Marta Pyatt of Nywot, Colorado, and family; close family friend Kelly Ellison, Gregory Theobald and granddaughter Maya Theobald, and Twyla's brother Bruce Cunningham of Napa, California, nieces Dr. Calaveras Cunningham and husband Mike Gordon, and Allison and Steve Elwood and families, and nephew Robert Cunningham and wife Dr. Rasika Cunningham and families for whom he became both uncle and grandpa. He was also treasured uncle to Margaret's nieces and nephews and many others of her family. We all remember him as lively, funny, smart, gregarious, generous and well-respected.

Donations may be made in his name to water.org in honor of his life-long efforts to bring clean water around the world.

A Zoom memorial will be organized on his behalf in the next couple of weeks. Send your email to receive notification for time and date to [email protected].