Cecil Duane Eliason

  

Cecil Duane Eliason, 81, of Kanawha, passed away Monday, July 11, 2011, at Hancock County Memorial Hospital in Britt.

Funeral services for Cecil Eliason will be held on Friday, July 15, 2011, at 1:30 pm at the Kanawha United Methodist Church in Kanawha followed by military services at Amsterdam Township Cemetery in Kanawha.  Pastor Tim Rieckhoff-Faris will be officiating.

Visitation will be held on Thursday, July 14, 2011 from 5-7 pm at Ewing Funeral Home, 118 East 2nd Street, in Kanawha and will continue one hour prior to the services at the church.

Cecil was born October 21, 1929 on his parents farm in Twin Lake Township the son of Elmer and Mabel (Tegland) Eliason.  He was baptized and confirmed in the Kanawha Lutheran Church.  He attended Kanawha rural schools.  At a young age he helped with farm work at the Charlie Hall farm and at several of his uncle’s farms in the 1940’s.

Cecil enlisted in the US Army on October 21, 1948 and in November 1949 was transferred to the Active Reserve Unit at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin where he served until 1953 when he received an honorable discharge.

On March 16, 1950 he married Maxine Carlson.  They lived and worked on a couple of Kanawha area farms until December 1954 when they moved to the Fred Knudsen farm where they farmed for 35 years.

Cecil became a member of the Kanawha United Methodist Church where he was a faithful member for the rest of his life.  He also served on the Kanawha Co-op Oil board for several years.  He had a love of horses, mules, coonhounds, fishing, and trapping in his earlier years.

Cecil and Maxine were blessed with a son, Scott on May 11, 1960.  They were also blessed to have Jock Stevenson live and work with them in the mid 1950’s as part of the family and sharing their family’s lives all through the years.

Cecil had to give up farming due to ill health in 1985.  In 1989 they moved to an acreage in Kanawha.

Those left to cherish his memory are his wife of 61 years, Maxine; their son Scott of Hopkins, Minnesota.  Also, the special family of Jock and Deanna Stevenson, Carly, and Sydney Henderson, and Renae, Brian and Alex Gibson from the Cedar Rapids area, brother Larry and wife Ally of Kanawha, sister-in-law Nellie Eliason of Pella; brother-in-law Carroll Carlson of Owatonna, Minnesota; sisters-in-law Jeanne Carlson, Marjorie Omvig both of Kanawha, Jeanie Bonjour of Idaho Falls, Idaho, Janice Liekwig and her husband Rex of Rockwell and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Preceding him in death were his parents; 5 brothers: Ernest, Robert, Donald, Melvin, Edgar, and an infant brother; sisters-in-law: Elsie Eliason, Maxine Tegland, Leona Abbas, Viola Eliason, Pearl Eliason, Elaine Weiland, and Beverly Carlson; brothers-in-law: Leo Carlson, Ion Freerksen, Harlan Carlson, Don Abbas, Vernon Weiland, and Arthur Omvig; nieces and nephews:  Darci Bonjour, Randy Eliason, Karen Weiland, Dale Eliason, Dennis Carlson, Ginger Cockrell, Linda Zeigler, and Brett Henderson.