Barbara Jean Ellerman DeLay, daughter of Dave F. Ellerman and Hilda W. Kohls Ellerman, was born Nov. 6, 1932, at home in rural Dallas Center, Iowa, and died June 1, 2024, at the MercyOne Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, at the age of 91.
As a young girl, Barbara attended Grant School #4, a one-room schoolhouse a mile from her home. She graduated from Dallas Center High School in 1950.
After graduation, she lived at Esther Hall in Des Moines and worked at Northwestern Bell Telephone. She later returned to Dallas Center and worked at Brenton Bank.
On June 3, 1953, Barbara was united in marriage to Jack E. DeLay.
The young couple moved to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma while Jack completed his U.S. Army service. They returned to Iowa in 1954 to farm near Dallas Center and then near Minburn in 1958.
They were the parents of two children, Ron and Becky.
Barbara was active as a farm wife, a home room mother, a Sunday School teacher and superintendent and a 4-H leader.
She later worked in Perry at Virginia’s and Fashions on Second.
After Jack’s death in 2006, Barbara moved first to Perry and later to Fishers, Indiana, to be close to her children. Everywhere she lived, she formed strong bonds and friendships.
Barb enjoyed dancing, traveling, watching hockey and college basketball, neighborhood gatherings and weekly ladies’ lunches.
Shortly before her death, she and her daughter, Becky, moved back to Iowa. She was delighted to be back and living only nine miles from where she was born and raised.
Survivors include her son, Ron, and his wife, Jane, of Bella Vista, Arkansas; her daughter, Becky of Waukee, Iowa; grandsons, Josh, and his wife, Jessica, of Bentonville, Arkansas, and Ben, and his wife, Jenn, of Cave Creek, Arizona; and great-grandsons, Brad and Sam DeLay of Cave Creek, Arizona, and Jack, Nolan and Winston DeLay of Bentonville, Arkansas; sisters-in-law, Doris Ellerman of Dallas Center, Janice Spellman of Granger, Nancy DeLay of Indianola and Sue DeLay of Davidson, South Carolina; brother-in-law, Roger DeLay, and his wife, Karen, of Burns, Tennessee; and many nieces; nephews; other relatives; and a host of friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Jack; her brother, Dick Ellerman; in-laws, Barbara and Leland McCormick, Shirley Baird, Bob DeLay, Jerry Spellman and Jerry DeLay.
Memorials will be designated to the Spring Valley campus of the Perry Lutheran Homes.
