Lela Garton

LELA GARTON

Washington

Lela Garton, 84, of Washington, Iowa, passed away Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, at 3 a.m. in her home in Washington. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at First Baptist Church in Washington. Interment will be private.

In lieu of flowers, please send any donations to the local missions project of the First Baptist Church. This fund goes to address local hunger issues.

Lela was born Feb. 17, 1932, in Springville, Iowa, to Raymond Russell Huckins and Eva Mae Platt. She studied at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, and graduated in 1953. On June 6, 1954, Miss Lela Mae Huckins married Keiffer George Garton in the Alice Evangelical United Brethren Church, after which they lived in Mechanicsville, Tipton and Washington, Iowa.

Lela taught in both junior and senior high school in Mechanicsville and was the first teacher of a trainable classroom in Cedar County. She helped write the activity coordinator's course for the Iowa State Department of Health for training care facility and nursing home staffs. And at Indian Hills and Southeast Iowa community colleges, she taught students training to become activity coordinators.

Lela was a member of the citizen advisory board for the Mental Health Institute in Mount Pleasant and on the coordinating board for mental health, intellectual and developmental disabilities in Washington County. She was an activity director at several care facilities in Washington.

In April 1977, she was hired as administrator of the Washington County Care Facility and was later elected president of the Iowa State County Care Facility Administrators Association. Lela was a board member for about 10 years for WACAN (Washington Against Child Abuse and Neglect.)

In the 1960s, Lela wrote a column in the North Cedar Press called Alv-Aly-Ocks in Free! She was also a local news correspondent for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, taking photographs and writing stories about local events. She was an avid letter writer and corresponded with many friends and family all over Iowa and the country.

In recent years, she had been volunteering at the Halcyon House in Washington, leading a small group of residents in storytelling and activities. Lela attended the First Baptist Church of Washington, and the friendships and relationships she formed there were very important to her. She enjoyed studying scripture and literature, and wrote two devotionals, "Good Gifts: An Advent Devotional," and "God and the Cobweb." The latter she started when she learned she had cancer.

"I feel God speaks to us in many ways and our daily nourishment comes to us from all directions. I have united God with life in these writings. Hopefully, the areas I used … God, Scripture, hymns, poetry, daily events, actual happenings, thoughts from others and your own thinking will supplement each other encourage us to make all we do a CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTER." -"God and the Cobweb."

She is survived by her husband of 62 years, Keiffer George Garton; her four children, Raymond Keiffer Garton, Philip Allen Garton, Wayne George Garton and Mary Kay Garton; and eight grandchildren, Sarah Jane Garton, Keiffer George Garton III, Rachel Marie Garton, Amanda Elizabeth Garton, Natalie Faye Garton, Tidwell Preston Garton, William Keiffer Johnson and George Garton Johnson.

Lela was preceded in death by her three brothers and one sister, George Huckins and Billy Ray Huckins, and the twins, Dorothy Ann Huckins and Dale Allen Huckins.