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Virgil Dean William Lenth, 88, of Elkader, passed away Friday, November 4, 2022, at the Elkader Care Center.\u00a0\u00a0 He was born February 12, 1934, in Farmersburg Township, Clayton County, Iowa to Arno and Hilda (Huebner) Lenth.\u00a0 Virgil attended Mecklenburg Country School and graduated from Elkader High School class of 1951.\u00a0 He served in the United States Navy from July 9, 1953, until he was honorably discharge on July 2, 1957.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On July 24, 1958, he was united in marriage to Caroline Ambrose at the St. Patrick rectory in Monona.\u00a0 The couple became parents of three children.\u00a0 The family lived on the farm near St. Olaf, which has been in the family over 150 years.\u00a0 Virgil worked at the St. Olaf Creamery for 22 years and raised beef cattle on the farm.\u00a0\u00a0 For 15 years the couple owned and operated the St. Olaf Tavern, where Virgil created the largest breaded pork tenderloin sandwich known in Northeast Iowa.<\/p>\n
Virgil was a member of the Farmersburg-St. Olaf American Legion Post #388 for 57 years, long-time member of the St. Olaf Fire Department and a life-time member of Norway Lutheran Church.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Virgil loved spending time going down to the \u201ccrick\u201d and with his many pet dogs and kitties.\u00a0\u00a0 He loved gardening, planting potatoes \u201con Good Friday\u201d, hunting mushrooms and picking wild black raspberries.\u00a0 He often told stories about his days attending the Mecklenburg school, his Navy adventures in Japan and reunions.\u00a0\u00a0 He was especially proud of his trips to Washington D.C. on the Honor Flight in 2015 and to San Padro, CA. in 2016 to visit the USS Battleship Iowa.\u00a0 He was quick to remember many birthdays of family, neighbors and friends and giving them a phone call to help celebrate their day.\u00a0\u00a0 His most special times were the visits from his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Survivors include his wife Caroline of Elkader; his children, Randy (Lisa) Lenth of St. Olaf, Ronny (Angie) Lenth of Hiawatha; five grandchildren, Gregory (Mackenzie Cowden) Lenth, Courtney (Jeff) Rezin, Zachary (Renee) Lenth, Alexander (Hannah) Lenth, Aimee (Rev. Daniel Hanson) Lenth; six great-grandchildren Atticus Lenth and Oliver Cowden, Campbell Rezin, Finley and Mya Lenth, Nora Lenth; sister, Maxine Kuehl of Elkader; \u00a0sister-in-law, Connie Lenth of Atkins; several nieces and nephew and many friends.<\/p>\n
Virgil was preceded in death by his son Ricky on July 11, 2016; his parents; brother, Gary Lenth; brother-in-law, Howard Kuehl; nephew, Brad Kuehl and niece, Sherry Henning.<\/p>\n
Visitation:\u00a0 <\/strong>Monday, November 7, 2022, 4:00-6:00 PM at Norway Lutheran Church, in rural St. Olaf and 10:00 AM, one hour before the funeral service on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Funeral Service:<\/strong> Tuesday, November 8th<\/sup> 11:00 AM. At Norway Lutheran Church<\/p>\n Officiant:<\/strong>\u00a0 Rev. Marshall Hahn<\/p>\n Interment<\/strong>:\u00a0 With military rites will follow in the church cemetery<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Virgil Dean William Lenth, 88, of Elkader, passed away Friday, November 4, 2022, at the Elkader Care Center.\u00a0\u00a0 He was born February 12, 1934, in Farmersburg Township, Clayton County, Iowa to Arno and Hilda (Huebner) Lenth.\u00a0 Virgil attended Mecklenburg Country School and graduated from Elkader High School class of 1951.\u00a0 He served in the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[406],"class_list":["post-13832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-lenth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13832"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13837,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832\/revisions\/13837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}