Emory Van Gerpen

Emory VanGerpen, age 97, of Washington, Iowa, passed away on Friday, January 24, 2025, at Mercy One Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa. Funeral services will be held 10:30 a.m. Friday, January 31, 2025, at the United Presbyterian Church with Chaplain Andrew Zuehlke officiating. Calling hours will begin 3:00 p.m. Thursday, January 30th at the Jones & Eden Funeral Home where the family will be present to receive friends from 5:00 until 7:00 Thursday evening. Interment will take place at the Elm Grove Cemetery in Washington. A general memorial has been established. Online condolences may be sent for Emory’s family at www.jonesfh.com. Emory John VanGerpen, son of John J. and Rosa F. (Bruns) VanGerpen was born December 30, 1927 at the rural family home north of Buffalo Center, Iowa, the eldest of eight children. His elementary education was in the Buffalo Center Community Schools, and a year in Hampton, Iowa Public School. His freshman year of high school was at Sheffield, Iowa, and the remaining three years in Belmond, Iowa, graduating in 1945. Sensing a call to overseas missionary work he enrolled at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, graduating from the four-year missions course in December 1948. While there he served a year as photographer for the school’s yearbook. At Moody he also met a young woman from Sibley, Iowa, Phyllis Jean Zylstra, who also was preparing for overseas mission work. With such common interests, they fell in love and became engaged, although marriage didn’t happen until several years later. In January 1949 Emory was ordained to the Gospel Ministry in the Baptist tradition in Belmond, Iowa. Emory continued his missionary preparations at Northwestern Schools in Minneapolis (now Northwestern University, St. Paul campus) graduating with a B.A. degree when the famed Evangelist Billy Graham was College President. Phyllis went on to earn her R.N. in Rochester, Minnesota, and on April 17, 1952 Emory and Phyllis married. Shortly thereafter they were accepted for overseas mission work by the Sudan Interior Mission. A few months later they crossed the Atlantic in 19 days on a cargo ship, disembarking at Lagos, Nigeria, Africa. After several months learning a Nigerian language (Hausa), Emory and Phyllis were posted to Wagini, a remote mission station in the sub-Saharan north of Nigeria—some 50 miles from the nearest post office or other mission station. For many years Emory shared the gospel story in a small church as well as in nearby villages, also helping Phyllis as needed in the mission dispensary treating patients. In 1966-1967 Emory was general manager of the Katsina Leprosarium, with the oversight of some 400 leprous patients clustered in five villages. He also translated gospel tracts from English into Hausa, writing in both Ajami (Arabic) and Roman scripts. With changing interests and 20 years of service, the relationship with the Sudan Interior Mission ended. In 1973 Emory joined the United Presbyterian Church, USA, pastoring the Alton, Iowa Presbyterian Church for a couple of years. In 1975 Emory and Phyllis returned to Nigeria where for the next 20 years he served the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria as a Church Consultant mainly as Secretary of the denomination’s Board of Propagation and Publication in promoting evangelism, and later as Secretary of the Board of Faith and Order dealing with worship and theology in a Nigerian cultural setting. Leaving Nigeria in 1995 Emory returned to America to do “Mission Interpretation” for two years until retirement. Though officially retired, Emory went on to serve the Westlawn Presbyterian Church, Sioux City, Iowa, as Pulpit Supply for six years, from 1998 to 2004, after which Emory and Phyllis moved to Washington, Iowa for their final years. Emory loved music and at both Moody and Northwestern was a member of both school’s choirs. Emory was a long-time member of the Rotary Club, 17 years in Kano, Nigeria, and 19 years in Iowa. Emory’s favorite hobby was genealogy, discovering his ‘roots’ in the very northwest corner of Germany, near the Netherlands border. Emory was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, his father who lived to be 92 and his mother who lived to 102. He is survived by all five children (four of whom were born in Nigeria), namely Ruth Ann (Dave) Wolf of St. Louis, MO, David VanGerpen of Washington, IA, Miriam (Alan Shapiro) VanGerpen of Camus, WA, Seth (Karen Hadley) VanGerpen of Dallas, TX, and Rachel (Jack Beard) Goedken of Lincoln, NE; his seven grandchildren, Esther (Brad) Murphy, Kathryn (Matthia) Accurso, Kristen Hoffer, Erica (Dan) Hillis, John (Sarah) Wolf, Ben Goedken, Sarah Goedken, ten great-grandchildren, Israel Hoffer, Solomon Hoffer, Ellie Wolf, James Murphy, Zola Accurso, Rhys Wolf, Samantha Hillis, Felix Accurso, Daniel Hillis, Nico Accurso, and all seven of his siblings: Myrna, Arthur, Irvin, Merle, Edythe, John, and Royce.

Emory Van Gerpen

December 30, 1927 - January 24, 2025