Archie D. Stone

West Des Moines

Archie Dean Stone, 92, died peacefully on Thursday, December 24, 2015, at Bickford Cottage in West Des Moines. Archie was born in Ridgeway, MO on November 9, 1923 to Opal and Dean Stone. At age 2 his family moved to a prairie homestead in Wyoming, where they lived until returning to Ridgeway in 1934. After graduating in 1941, he soon joined the Navy, serving as a munitions specialist and deep-sea diver disarming mines taken from harbors in Japan and China. After WWII, Arch used the GI bill to obtain a degree in Animal Husbandry from the Univ. of Missouri. He soon took a position with Wallace’s Farmer magazine, where he worked as a livestock advertising salesman until his retirement in 1986. Archie married Ruth A. Smith of Cedar Rapids in 1951. They raised three sons in West Des Moines over the course of a 64-year-marriage.

Known for his good-natured humor, optimism and honesty, Archie enjoyed learning to do a variety of things on his own. He taught himself photography and oil painting, assembled the family’s first color television from a mail order kit, hand-built the family camper, wired and plumbed their entire home, and taught himself cabinet-making. In retirement he became a renowned gardener, annually canning or freezing hundreds of quarts of tomato soup, salsa and juice, and hosting legendary corn roasts at their place on the south bank of the Raccoon River in the Walnut Woods neighborhood.

Archie is survived by his wife, Ruth; older sister Marjory Norris of Lebanon, IL; sons, Jeff (Pam) Stone, Scott (Theresa) Stone and Ben (Marilyn) Stone all of West Des Moines; grandchildren, Korley (Jason) Westvold of Grimes, Bailey Stone of San Francisco, CA, Justine Stone of Minneapolis, MN, Thomas, Hope and Nate Stone of West Des Moines; and great-grandchildren, Logan and Dominic Westvold of Grimes. He was preceded in death by grandson, Gavin Archie Stone; siblings, Miriam Lorimer of Butler, MO and Bob Stone of Spring Hill, KS.

A memorial service will be held 6 p.m. Monday, January 4, 2016 at McLaren’s Chapel at 801-19th St. in West Des Moines with a visitation from 4 p.m. until service time. Memorial contributions may be made to Friends of Walnut Woods State Park or St. Mark Lutheran Church in West Des Moines.