Mr. Collins Ellis Petitt

Collins Ellis Petitt, 82, died peacefully at his Smithville, Mo., home on Aug. 11, 2021 in the same location as his dearly departed wife, Sharon Gaye Howe, eight months earlier. “All I want is to be with her,” he told his hospice nurse just the day before. Though he had many health challenges, he indeed died of a broken heart from being separated from his first and only love of 62 years, and to whom he had been her doting caretaker as she suffered from Alzheimer's for the past 11 years.

Though he leaves behind a daughter, Sherrie Colleen Womack of Adelaide, Australia, and son, Collins Kirk Petitt, of Lebanon, Ill., and their spouses, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, we all rejoice in knowing that he is reunited with her, as well as his parents, Collins Jefferson Petitt and Maurice Corum, and brother, Floyd Jarvis, who preceded him in death. He leaves behind another brother, Ronald Teddy.

Collins, with his iconic mutton-chop sideburns, was buried in his yellow pocketed shirt that was always stuffed with pens, glasses and writing pads, classic belt buckle with inlaid jeweled tones, and brown leisure slacks where he kept his shed keys and Swiss Army knife on him at all times. He was a man of many talents to include gardening, expert detailing of cars, fixing things that broke, keeping manuals for every item he ever owned, collecting of clocks and weather radios, and cooking ribs in his smoker to perfection. He would host his own birthday bash at his humble home every Dec. 23 for family and friends, a tradition for many years. Though elderly, he stayed up with technology and wired his entire house to turn on or off to his phone, a feat that no one else can claim.

As an Army veteran, he served two years stateside during Vietnam as an admin clerk [and another four years in the Reserve]. He loved this country and flew a flag in his yard his entire life. After Vietnam, he worked for 42 years at Cook Composites and Polymers Co., of North Kansas City, as an environmental specialist.

Special thanks to Missouri Palliative Care who provided a dignified transfer of his body, draped in our nation’s colors. He will be interred next to Sharon at White Chapel Cemetery in Gladstone, Mo.

The family will conduct their own virtual memorial, and any expressions of condolences can be made on White Chapel’s website at www.dwnwhitechapel.com.