{"id":7038,"date":"2019-04-18T15:03:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T20:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/?p=7038"},"modified":"2019-04-18T15:18:35","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T20:18:35","slug":"ramona-kay-dempsey-west-union-iowa-april-15-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/2019\/04\/ramona-kay-dempsey-west-union-iowa-april-15-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramona &#8220;Kay&#8221;, Dempsey, West Union, Iowa April 15, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-small_image wp-image-7041 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo-250x395.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo-250x395.jpg 250w, https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo-190x300.jpg 190w, https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo-400x632.jpg 400w, https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo-68x107.jpg 68w, https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dempsey-News-Photo.jpg 510w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>Ramona \u201cKay\u201d Darnell Dempsey, 81, of West Union, Iowa went home on Monday, April 15, 2019 at the Good Samaritan Society in West Union, Iowa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Kay was born on February 3, 1938 in rural Fayette County to Vern and Evelyn Darnell. She grew up in West Union and graduated from West Union High School in 1956. After graduation, Kay attended Iowa State Teachers for a year before enlisting in the Women\u2019s Army Corp where she met and married David Dempsey. They lived in Rahway, New Jersey and brought into this world four children named Dana, Lisa, Theresa and Chris.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">In 1976, after a divorce, Kay and her children moved from Rahway, New Jersey to West Union, Iowa. And that July, Kay began working at the Town House Caf\u00e9 in West Union where she worked for over thirty years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Kay was a member of the First Baptist Church of West Union and over the years was active in the North Fayette Booster Club. She served as President for a time and worked at the high school track meets. Kay never missed one of her 4 kids&#8217; softball, baseball or basketball games or wrestling meets. She also volunteered at the West Union Library and Good Samaritan Society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Kay loved spending time with her grandchildren\u2026as well as sitting on her front porch, watching sports and cheering on her Iowa Hawkeyes, New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs. And she always loved a good conversation about sports!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Kay is survived by her four children\u2026Dana Dempsey of Waterloo, Iowa; Lisa (Tim) Ludden of Dublin, California; Theresa (Danilo) Jocic of Hoffman Estates, Illinois and Chris (Jeanette) Dempsey of Columbia, South Carolina; her sisters Lynn Darnell and Jill Darnell of West Union, Iowa; her brother Dirk Darnell of Silver Springs, Maryland; her sister-in-law Anita Darnell of Bluffton, Ohio; her grandchildren, Sam Ludden, Hannah Ludden, Cheyenne Bangs, Alexa Jocic, Caitlin Dempsey and Rylee Dempsey; her good friends Patty Price and April Quandahl; her cousins; and many friends at the Good Samaritan Society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Kay was preceded in death by her brother Richard Darnell and Kay requested that all memorials be directed to the North Fayette Valley Booster Club.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Visitation will be held from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at Burnham-Wood-Grau Funeral Home in West Union, Iowa. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">A celebration of Kay\u2019s life will be held at 10:00 am on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at the First Baptist Church in West Union, Iowa with her burial to follow at Pleasant Grove Cemetery in rural West Union, Iowa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Burnham-Wood Grau Funeral Home and Cremation Service of West Union, Iowa is helping the family with arrangements.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ramona \u201cKay\u201d Darnell Dempsey, 81, of West Union, Iowa went home on Monday, April 15, 2019 at the Good Samaritan Society in West Union, Iowa. Kay was born on February 3, 1938 in rural Fayette County to Vern and Evelyn Darnell. She grew up in West Union and graduated from West Union High School in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[613],"class_list":["post-7038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-dempsey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038","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=7038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7042,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions\/7042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graufuneralhomes.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}