Frank Cmelik

FRANK J. CMELIK

Marengo

Frank J. Cmelik died peacefully the morning of Feb. 6, 2016, in Marengo.

Frank was one of 10 children born in 1926 to Frank and Margaret Cmelik. He attended Waverly High School and upon graduation in 1944, was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served as a rifleman in E Company, 3rd platoon, 334th regiment, 84th Division, "Railsplitters," during the Central Europe and Rhineland campaigns of World War II, earning the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star Medal. He participated in the liberation of the Salzwedel, Germany, subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, which freed over 3,000 women near Hanover. Upon his return to the United States, he was transferred to Fort Ord in Monterey, Calif., where he trained to make amphibious landings until his honorable discharge in 1946.

He returned home to assist with his family's meat locker business in Waverly and attend refrigeration school.

In 1955, Cmelik graduated from Iowa State College with a B.S. degree in civil engineering. He worked for Kimberly Clark Paper Co. in Neenah-Menasha, Wis., where he met his wife, Nancy, of 59 years, during a ballroom dancing class. In 1956, they married and raised five children from 1957 to 1988.

Frank, a licensed land surveyor, returned to Iowa and served in a number of government positions at the state and county level, including bridge designer, highway inspector and county engineer. He retired from professional life in 1980.

Frank loved his wife, children, grandchildren, boating and traveling cross-country by automobile. He could, on the weekend, be found boating on the Mississippi River or Table Rock Lake with his family or polishing the fenders on one of many cars he owned throughout his life.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy; children, Robert, Barbara, Margaret, Jackie and David; and six grandchildren, Rebecca, Emily, Apryl, Calla, Franklin and Graham.