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Daryl Kline, 81, of Afton, died Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Celebration of Life Services will be 10:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 14, at Powers Funeral Home in Creston. Pastor Jodi Rushing will officiate. Services will be livestreamed. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery (Jerusalem), northeast of Creston. Open visitation was held 2-7 p.m., with family receiving friends from 5-7 p.m., Thursday, at Powers Funeral Home in Creston.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are to the family to be determined later. Online condolences can be left at www.powersfh.com.
Daryl Hartley Kline was born March 20, 1944, to Florence Irene (Hartley) Miler and Daryl Burr Miler in Oakland, California. After his father’s passing in 1945, he was raised by his mother, Irene, and adoptive father, Paul John Kline.
Daryl attended East Union High School and graduated with the class of 1962. He then went on to study at Creston Community College, earning an associate’s degree in 1964. In 1966, he graduated from Northwest Missouri State College with an accounting degree.
On July 18, 1965, Daryl was united in marriage to Karen Mae Schrader in Creston. From this union came two sons, Ken and Shawn. Daryl first began working at Walnut Grove Feeds in 1966 until 1974. He owned and operated Rafter K Farms and ran his own tax services for more than 35 years.
Daryl’s passion was farming – he raised cattle and hogs and grew corn, soybeans and hay. He spent any free time he had restoring antique John Deere tractors and collecting them as toys. He also enjoyed watching western movies and listening to classic country music. As a youth, he was active in 4-H. Later, he participated in Union County Farm Bureau, where he served as secretary, and was on the Greater Community Hospital Board of Directors from 1983-1994. He was a member of the Jerusalem United Methodist Church and served as lay-leader for several years, always opening the service with a joke.
Fond family memories include Sunday afternoon motorcycle rides, family games of tag on summer evenings and fox-and-goose on snowy winter weekends. He shared holiday dinners and farming experiences with his older grandkids (when repairing machinery, he always held up his grease-gun and asked if they wanted a bite to eat!), played hide-and-seek/tag in his office, kept the go-kart running and took Christmas trips to New York with his younger grandkids. Also, as everyone who talked to him knew, there wasn’t a short story he couldn’t make long (or really, really long)! He loved the West, and adventured through Wyoming and Montana during the last two summers.
Survivors include his wife Karen Kline of Afton; his sons, Ken (Julie) Kline of Creston and Shawn (Janine) Kline of Larchmont, New York; four grandchildren: Bradley (Staci) Kline, Brent (Ashton) Kline, Connor Kline and Cassidy Kline; five great-grandchildren: Elli, Cecilia, Kensli, Maggie and Gavin Kline; three brothers: Steve (Pat) Kline, Alan (Linda) Kline and Richard (Tammy) Kline; four sisters-in-law: Janice (John) Peppmeier, Patricia (Jim) Campbell, Cheri Schrader and Shellie Mayne; along with many nieces, nephews and other extended family.
Daryl was preceded in death by his parents: Irene and Paul Kline and Daryl Miler; grandparents: Eva and Harry Hartley, John and Bertha Kline and Leota and Burr Miler and two brothers-in-law, Roger Schrader and Virgil Schrader in infancy.