John Robert Fromm

May 15, 1935-December 5, 2019

John Fromm, 84, passed away on Dec. 5, 2019, at his home in Prescott, Arizona, following a short illness. His wife Thelma Fromm and her sister Lila Witt were with him in his last days.

John Robert Fromm was born at the Park Hospital in Mason City, Iowa, the first one in his family to be born in a hospital. He was the third child of Charlie and Gertie Fromm. He grew up on the home farm near Plymouth and spent his first fifty five years there. He was baptized, confirmed and married in the First Methodist Church in Plymouth and met his future wife in Sunday School there.

John attended Lime Creek #6, the country school where his father, his aunts and uncle, his brother and sisters had also gone. In 6th grade he went to Plymouth Consolidated School and graduated from high school in 1953. He studied at Iowa State College in Ames for two years, then came back to the farm.

John and Thelma Witt were married August 14, 1955, and lived in their home on the farm for the next 33 years. He served in the Army National Guard from 1957 to 1960. In addition to farming, John also was elected to two terms as a Cerro Gordo County Supervisor from 1981 to 1988, work that he found rewarding and invigorating.

They moved to Prescott AZ in 1988. John worked for Yavapai College as a mechanic and bus driver for college athletic teams. He was also a driver for Northern Arizona Bus Tours and Elderhostel.

John will be remembered as a collector and teller of stories, mostly about folks and events in the earlier days in Plymouth and Manly.

He was preceded in death by his father (on Dec. 5, 1948) and mother (on Oct. 28, 1986), brother Charles, sister and her husband, the Reverends Marilyn and Charles Butler.

He is survived by his wife Thelma, sister and brother-in-law Geraldine and Dean Schwarz of Decorah, IA, by nieces Beverly and Anne Butler, nephew John Butler, as well as the Schwarz children and grandchildren.

Services will be held at the Prescott United Methodist Church. For more information contact https://www.ruffnerwakelin.com. Graveside services will also be held at the Oakwood Cemetery in Plymouth, Iowa, at a later date.