Robert Cerven

Robert (Bob) Dean Cerven of rural Weldon died peacefully in his sleep June 9, 2017, at Kavanagh House in Des Moines at the age of 92 years, 11 months and 9 days.

Bob was born July 1, 1924, on the family farm in Taylor County, the first child of four born to Margorie (Akers) and Oscar Cerven. He attended grammar school at a nearby country school after which he attended and graduated from high school in Gravity. Work on the farm, even as a young child, afforded little time for play or extra-curricular school activities. Life for the young boy growing up during the depression years was hard. He found happiness though in the form of his Grandfather Akers. Perhaps Bob’s fondest childhood memories grew from time spent with him – among them driving to Gravity in his grandfather’s shiny green Whippet for an ice cream cone, eating thick slices of bread slathered with honey from his grandfather’s bee hives, swinging lazily in the hammock strung between two shade trees in the front yard, filling baskets with apples in the orchard on hot summer days, his grandfather joking and teasing and spinning witty quips that Bob would share with others into his own later years.

Bob met his one and only love, Betty Jean Allen, in Oak Hill Church, a small country church in Taylor County where she was singing with her brother. “I knew she was the one when I saw her and heard her sing,” he would reminisce. Life moves faster and with greater urgency during wartime, and the young people married in a whirlwind on June 4, 1944, after Bob was drafted into the U.S. Navy at 19 years and before he was shipped out to sea. The young sailor served aboard the USS YMS-411 Minesweeper, disabling mines in the waters off islands held by Japanese forces in the South Pacific and rising to the rank of Boatswain’s Mate Second Class.

Upon receiving an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy after the war, Bob returned home to his young bride where they began their life together, working a small farm in Taylor County and starting their young family – five children in five years – Linda, Bobby, twins Janet and Janice and Patty. His grandfather would play a vital part in the young family’s life as Bob and he worked alongside each other once again, farming and building a corn crib and garage together.

In 1956 after Grandfather Akers had died, Bob and Betty moved their family to a farm in southern Clarke County where they farmed more than 55 years, working hard and fiercely relying on themselves with God to see them through hard times. As a business man and farmer, Bob would be known in the community for his honesty and the fine quality of his livestock and for his care and respect for his farmland – rotating crops religiously, seeding tired ground and waterways, terracing flat grounds, building and mending fences. As a family man, his children and their needs came first, above all else, and as the family circle expanded to grandchildren and then great-grandchildren, children remained at the center of his life. There would always be tractor rides and newborn animals to share with them with a little teasing splashed in to the delight of grandchildren.

Preceding Bob in death are his beloved wife Betty; his son Robert Cerven Jr.; grandson Christopher Street; parents, Margorie and Oscar Cerven; brother Dale Cerven and son-in-law Jerry Sparks.

To cherish his memory, Bob leaves behind daughters, Linda (Jerry) Street of Norwalk, Janet Sparks of Osceola, Janice (Steven) Whitham of Shawnee, Kansas, and Patty (Mike) Street of Milo; 11 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; sister Dorothy Hicks of New Market; brother Duane Cerven of Westboro, Missouri; sister-in-law Marcia Cerven of Corning; numerous nieces and nephews, other relatives and close friends.