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David Earl Moody was born on December 6, 1947, in New Hampton, Iowa, to Earl and Betty Jean (Slick) Moody.\u00a0 He passed away peacefully and privately at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, on September 4, 2018.\u00a0 He battled, prostate cancer, lung cancer and brain cancer all as the result of his exposure to Agent Orange while serving his country in Viet Nam during 1968-69.<\/p>\n
He was a complicated man.\u00a0 To anyone who would look into his past, one would have a clearer understanding of how he became so complicated.<\/p>\n
Dave had an extreme sense of bravery in any situation.\u00a0 Perhaps his only fears were of snakes and bats.\u00a0 Snakes immediately succumbed to his wrath with a hoe.\u00a0 Bats (once in the house) were pursued with Dave wearing a baseball cap, donning leather gloves with a badminton racket in hand.\u00a0 Worked every time!<\/p>\n
He grew up in a small Iowa town as the town rebel and \u201cleader of the pack.\u201d\u00a0 He was an independent thinker and wasn\u2019t shy about making his opinions known and lived with every decision he ever made without regret.\u00a0 However, he was a very private and humble man.\u00a0 At an early age he was a wrencher and a grease monkey.\u00a0 He had an unquenchable thirst of how everything worked.\u00a0 The best way to satisfy that thurst was for him to take apart whatever challenged his curiosity to see if he could get it back together.\u00a0 He was generally successful, but any parts left over were put in a \u201cparts place\u201d so next time he came up short, he always had spare parts.\u00a0 He called it his \u201cinventory.\u201d\u00a0 The fact that his Dad owned and operated a gas station\/truck stop was the perfect place for this guy to grow up.\u00a0 So accomplished was he in his knowledge of mechanics that the local school district entrusted him with its fleet of school buses.\u00a0 On many occasions he was called out of class by the superintendent to work on a bus that needed some repairs before the afternoon route.\u00a0 He loved doing that work, plus it got him out of class.<\/p>\n
During the summer before his senior year in high school his brother, who was 2 years younger than him, was killed in a car accident on an Iowa gravel road at the age of 15.\u00a0 His parents were seriously injured in a separate car accident which rendered his Mom a slow recovery lasting many months.<\/p>\n
Dave graduated from Fredericksburg High School in 1966.\u00a0 He was drafted into the U.S. Army.\u00a0 His basic training was taken at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.\u00a0 He fulfilled his AIT at Fort Polk, LA, which prepared him for serving his country in the jungles of Viet Nam.\u00a0 While in Nam he was assigned as a track commander and mortar man in 1968-69.\u00a0\u00a0 He returned stateside to complete his service at Fort Carson, CO.\u00a0 He was honorably discharged with a rank of SP\/4 (T) E4.<\/p>\n
Upon returning from Viet Nam, he married Ronna Anderson.\u00a0 They later divorced.\u00a0 On August 8, 1981, Dave married Anna Shady at St. John Lutheran Church, Farmersburg, IA. Anna and Dave purchased a small acreage in Prairie du Chien, WI and moved there in 1986.\u00a0 They recently celebrated their 37th<\/sup> wedding anniversary.\u00a0 The sense of humor they shared helped make the marriage a success for all those years.\u00a0 Sometimes misunderstood by outsiders, it was the glue that held their relationship together.<\/p>\n David spent most of his life as a truck driver hauling milk, grain, livestock, van freight and groceries for Walmart.\u00a0 He worked for 8 years as the traffic manager at Gencor\/Bituma in Marquette, IA dispatching oversize and legal load asphalt equipment.\u00a0 He organized, owned and operated an expedited freight company and pilot car service for 15 years.\u00a0 He escorted such things as milk\/ice cream silos, generators, asphalt equipment, transformers, rocket launchers, wind turbines, gold mine equipment, everything except trailer houses.<\/p>\n In 2005 Dave co-partnered to form Baraboo River Express.\u00a0 In that entity he owned and operated his own semi-truck while continuing to transport groceries for Walmart.\u00a0 He passed his truck on to his daughter, Angela, in 2008.\u00a0 Dave continued driving a few more years for his co-partner making Walmart deliveries.\u00a0 Due to his health, he retired from full time truck driving in 2015.\u00a0 He later earned a 100% disabled classification by the Veterans Administration as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Viet Nam.<\/p>\n Dave was a dedicated father and always had time for family.\u00a0 No matter how busy, or far away he was, – he had time to talk or rush to the side of a family member in need.<\/p>\n Dave loved the outdoors and was always busy on the small acreage he and Anna owned in Prairie du Chien, WI.\u00a0 He could always find some reason to drive his tractor around the yard hauling wood or moving Anna\u2019s beloved rocks.\u00a0 He cut all their own wood which fed the basement wood stove and the living room fireplace.\u00a0 In retirement he applied his skills as the neighborhood handyman, working and repairing everything from farm tractors and equipment, lawn mowers and snow blowers to plumbing and electrical jobs.\u00a0 He recently developed a love for vegetable gardening and loved watching it grow.\u00a0 He also assisted at the LaRiviere Horse Park which adjoined their acreage, hauling horse manure, and doing odd jobs helping at the park.\u00a0 For a few years Dave broke and cared for a small herd of \u201cSale Barn\u201d horses which the kids enjoyed trail riding in the Coulee.<\/p>\n Dave loved fishing, but in spite of living only a couple miles from the Mississippi River, he barely took time to go fishing.\u00a0 However, he never missed taking some of his adult children and grandchildren bullhead fishing in Minnesota each Memorial Day, a tradition his father instilled in him at an early age.<\/p>\n Because they owned Afghan Hounds (currently three) it was necessary to purchase a 36\u2019 motor home for traveling.\u00a0 Dave and Anna did not believe in boarding these members of their family so where they went, so did all three hounds, and they were excellent travelers.<\/p>\n Dave is survived by his wife, Anna, of Prairie du Chien, WI; six children:\u00a0 Toni (Mike) Federer, Palo, IA; Angela (Asa) Sessions, Prairie du Chien, WI; Timothy Moody, Fredericksburg, IA; Troy (Ruthie) Moody, Belvidere, NC; Ryan (Katie) Moody, Burnsville, MN; and Shannon (Darin) Schoonover, Sumner, IA.\u00a0 In addition, survivors include nine grandchildren: Jacob, Kyle, Tyler, Kennedy, Luca, Meghan, Matthew, Owen and Olyvia; and one great-granddaughter, Felicity.\u00a0 Other survivors include siblings: Ronnie (Judy) Moody and Kathy (Dick) Schmadeke all of Fredericksburg, IA; a sister-in-law, Kathryn (Kent) Severson of Farmersburg, IA; several nieces and nephews, as well as many lifetime friends.<\/p>\n Dave was preceded in death by his parents, Earl and Betty Jean (Slick) Moody, a brother, Harlan Moody, his maternal and paternal grandparents.<\/p>\n Dave and Anna were members of Faith Lutheran Church, an NALC congregation,\u00a0 Monona, IA.<\/p>\n Funeral Services will be held on Friday, September 14, 2018, at Hillcrest Baptist Brethren Church in Fredericksburg, IA at 11:00 AM preceded by visitation at the church from 9:00 AM until time of services. Pastor Todd Yeaton officiating. Burial will be in Rose Hill Cemetery also in Fredericksburg, IA.<\/p>\n Memorials may be given to Faith Lutheran Church, Monona, IA in Dave’s memory<\/p>\n Thornburg-Grau Funeral Home and Cremation Service of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin is helping the family with the arrangements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Earl Moody was born on December 6, 1947, in New Hampton, Iowa, to Earl and Betty Jean (Slick) Moody.\u00a0 He passed away peacefully and privately at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, on September 4, 2018.\u00a0 He battled, prostate cancer, lung cancer and brain cancer all as the result of his exposure to Agent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[506],"class_list":["post-5860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-moody"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860","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=5860"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5878,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860\/revisions\/5878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}