Galen ""Bud"" Lawrence

A Life Lived for His Community

Galen Scott “Bud” Lawrence

For over 50 years, Memorial Day Services at the Riverview Cemetery at Doon, Iowa, were hallmarked by the tear-inducing sound of a melancholy bugle playing “Taps” in honor of fallen comrades.

The Bugler was World War II veteran Galen Scott “Bud” Lawrence. His annual salute to fallen comrades was but one example of a man who focused his life on service to his community, his church, and his family.

Galen passed away peacefully on July 30, having lived over 95 years since his birth May 17, 1921 in Montevideo, Minnesota.

Bud’s parents moved the family to the farm near Doon in the height of the depression, and the family was often fed by proceeds from Bud’s trapping of muskrats and beaver on the Rock River. One fall day Bud, then 13, offered to carry Joyce Ray’s saxophone home for her after school. The romance sparked that autumn day would last for 80 years.

They were married near the end of the war at Joplin, Missouri, in services hastily arranged when Bud was granted a weekend pass. No family was present and there was no wedding cake. But Joyce always wanted one. So when Bud and Joyce celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, her children brought her-at last-a wedding cake.

Though she beamed with thanks and at 91 looked ready for another decade of life, a heart attack claimed her the very next day. Bud entered a memory care facility shortly thereafter, where he lived until a few weeks before his death.

Throughout his life, Bud went quietly about “doing his duty” for his family, his church, and his community.

He was an early pioneer in contour farming. In those days’ corn rows were planted straight up and down the hill (causing major erosion when it rained) and old-fashioned neighbors thought “curvy-rows Bud” was crazy. But when his yields outpaced theirs, and when the Conservation Service gave him awards for leadership, they adopted his practices.

Bud loved kids. He served as a 4-H leader and Sunday School teacher for 25 years. He loved music and his quartet composed of members Buzz Hass, Louie Kopsas, and Ivan Krull, were asked to sing at over a hundred funerals at the church his great grandfather, William Wallace Reynolds, was instrumental in forming in 1885. Bud was the first in a long line of trombone players which included his brothers, sons, grandsons, and a nephew who plays today with the San Francisco Symphony.

Bud as a lifelong member of his Masonic Lodge; he served on the Historical Society and Township boards. He was an election supervisor, and a Republican convention delegate. His was a life lived with a simple, pure dedication to doing what he said responsible people do for their community.

He sat at the side of his mother all through her long fight against cancer; he and Joyce invited widows to share Christmas Eve with them, and brought gifts to the forgotten.

Oh, “Bailing Wire Bud” had his quirks. Most memorable was the electric fence “system” surrounding the farm. Dependent upon this tree branch and that rotted post, connected by a maze of dangling bailing wire, nobody could make “the system” work but him.

Being a meteorologist during the War (stationed at Point Barrow, Alaska), Bud was convinced the ridge of land between Canton, SD, and Doon mysteriously “steered” thunderstorms from dropping their rain on the Lawrence farm. He called it the Ridge Effect.

Though he and Joyce were lovers forever, Bud mastered the art of getting-as he would call it-a “rise” out of Joyce. When he did, Joyce would lament she was “Budgravated”. Nevertheless, he and Joyce set a standard in faithful marriage, something his sons have now carried on through over 80 combined years of marriage.

Bud’s two brothers, Dewey and Howard, and sister, Jane, preceded him in death. He is survived by two sons, Scott and Craig, and their wives, respectively, Marlys (DeRoo) and Marcia (Mostrom); five grandchildren, Elizabeth, Ralph, David, Anne, and Christopher; 9 great grandchildren; and sister-in-law, Elanor Lawrence of Fostoria, Iowa.

His family thanks the caring staff at Edgewood Vista and the Centennial Hospice Cottage for their compassionate care.

Funeral services will be held at the First United Methodist Church in Doon, Iowa, at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, August 4, 2016 with Rev. Steve Swenson officiating. Burial with military rites will follow in the Hillside Cemetery at Doon. Visitation with the family will be from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. with a Masonic Service at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday at the Porter Funeral Home in Rock Valley, Iowa. Condolences may be sent to www.porterfuneralhomes.com. Memorials in his name should be directed to the church at 201 Barton St., Doon, Iowa, 51235.

Visitation

5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. ,Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Porter Funeral Home ~ Rock Valley
1704 15th Street Rock Valley, Iowa 51247

Masonic Service

7:00 p.m. ,Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Porter Funeral Home ~ Rock Valley
1704 15th Street Rock Valley, Iowa 51247

Funeral Service

10:30 a.m. ,Thursday, August 4, 2016
Doon First United Methodist Church
201 Barton Street Doon, IA 51235