Donald Dean LaRue, 83
Donald Dean LaRue, age 83 of Nashua, died Thursday, March 18, 2021, at UnityPoint Health - Allen Hospital in Waterloo.
A private funeral service will take place at a later date. Hugeback Johnson Funeral Home and Crematory - Olson Chapel is entrusted with arrangements. Online condolences for Don's family may be left at hugebackfuneralhome.com
A Celebration of Life will be held in Don's honor at Iowa Base on October 9, 2021, 1616 270th St. Nashua, IA 50658. More details and times for this event are to come.
Donald Dean LaRue was born on June 17, 1937, in the small north-central Iowa town of Woden to Norman and Dena (Steenhard) LaRue. He was the oldest of the couple's four children and grew up on a farm in the Meservey and Alexander area.
Like most farm kids in that era, Don learned at an early age the value of hard work, helping his parents and his grandparents with chores and fieldwork on their farms. He attended school and was a member of the Class of 1955 at Meservey High School.
Don enlisted in the National Guard Ironman Battalion and the 34th Infantry Division, where he served as 1st Sergeant Donald LaRue, serving our country for twenty-seven plus years. When he was on leave, he went with some friends to Dumont. Don would eventually travel the world, but that trek to Dumont may have been the most important trip of his life for it was there that he met a pretty young girl named Patty Bohner.
The couple began dating, fell in love, and were married on Jan. 16, 1959, in Dows, and their family grew to include two sons - Joel and Troy.
After receiving an honorable discharge from the Army, Don worked several jobs before he took a job at Hydrotile in Nashua, where the family moved in 1964. During his long career at the Nashua manufacturer, he traveled to places like Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Panama - just to name a few - to help install his company's products.
Growing up, his boys remember that they had a dad who was the epitome of a "hard-working man," and Don loved hunting, fishing, and, of course, telling tales about them.
When Hydrotile closed in the late 1980s, he worked for Featherlite for a couple of years before starting a concrete consulting business that took him all over the country. In 2000, he founded Iowa Base, a precast concrete firm based in Nashua, and Don rarely, if ever, missed a day of work; in fact, he put in his last day at the company he built from scratch just two days before he passed away.
Don was proud of his family, and he loved spending time with his grandchildren and swapping stories with them.
He was also a longtime member of the Nashua Fishing and Game Club, he loved being a part of the Old Bradford Pioneer Museum and was dedicated to his community through his involvement in the Big 4 Chamber of Commerce.
This hard-working man will be dearly missed by his sons, grandchildren, friends, and the community he served so well, but they are comforted knowing that Don is now reunited with Patty.
Donald is survived by two sons, Joel (Michelle) LaRue of Charles City, Troy (Lisa) LaRue of Ionia; two grandchildren, Morgan (Wayne) Adams, Hannah LaRue; three step-grandchildren, Jennifer (Justin) Beals, Christine (Gregory) Jennings, Angela (Nicholas) Otis; eight step-great-grandchildren; one sister, Norma (Butch) Whipple of Dows, IA; along with several nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Patty LaRue in 2018; two brothers, Dewayne & Durwood LaRue.
