Obituary Project

Here you will find a collection of obituaries for members of the Greathouse family. If you have other obituaries about members of the Greathouse family, please submit them to Greathouse Point.

Stanley E. Greathouse
June 5, 2003 12:00AM
(Submitted by Carolyn Orrick Greathouse)

Stanley E. Greathouse, 86, of Johnsonville died 3 a.m. June 4, 2003, at Fairfield Memorial Hospital in Fairfield.

He was a farmer, a teacher and an administrator.

He was born Dec. 11, 1916, in Wayne County to Keith Greathouse and Maude (Holler) Greathouse. He married Iona (Lamb) Greathouse Sept. 2, 1941, in Perryville, Mo.; she died in January of 1982. He later married Vera (Ferguson) Beard in 1984 in Wayne County; she survives.

Funeral services will be held 2 p.m. Saturday at Poplar Creek Community of Christ Church in Orchardville. Evangelist Marvin Kleinau will officiate. Burial will follow at Poplar Creek Cemetery in rural Wayne County.

Friends may call from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Frank and Bright Funeral Home in Flora and after noon Saturday until service time at the church.

Mr. Greathouse is survived by his wife, Vera Greathouse of Johnsonville; one daughter, Ann Schwengel and husband John of DuQuoin; two grandchildren, Erika Clements and husband Joe of Marion and Andrew Schwengel, in the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville, Fla.; two great-grandchildren, Ellie and Jake Clements of Marion; one brother, Arthur Greathouse and wife Dorothy of Mountain Home, Ark.; and one sister, Wanda Ires of Laguna Hills, Calif.

Upon graduation from Salem High School, he worked on a farm in northern Illinois and a steel mill at Sterling to pay his tuition to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in social studies in 1938. He taught for four years at Wild Cat and 11 years at Brown, Concord and Mills, which were all one-room schools. He served in the army from 1941 to 1944. He then entered farming, raising grain and livestock while continuing to teach. In 1957 he became teacher and principal at Orchardville Grade School.

In 1973 he was honored as Conservation Teacher of the Year by the local conservation district and also District 13. The next year he was presented with the Distinguished Service Award in Public School Administration by Phi Delta Kappa at SIU. In 1977, WMCL in McLeansboro awarded him the Community Service Award. Mr. Greathouse retired in 1977 after 32 years as a teacher and administrator.

He became a director on the Wayne-White County Electric Cooperative Board in 1964, where he served as assistant treasurer in 1970, president from 1972 to 1975, and vice president from 1976 to 1977. He served as Wayne-White Electric’s representative on the AIEC state board, was elected vice president of the board in 1972, then served as president until 1977. Mr. Greathouse represented Illinois as its director on the board of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Washington for 10 years.

His other memberships include the Illinois Retired Teachers Association, serving as its regional director and on committees for budget and insurance; the National Education Association; Wayne County Association for Retarded Children; Wayne County Farm Bureau; the Farmer’s Union; and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension Service. Mr. Greathouse helped form the Wayne County Health Department and served on the Wayne County Health Board.

Mr. Greathouse has long been active in his local church, serving as pastor to the Poplar Creek and Brush Creek congregations of the Community of Christ, performing many wedding and funeral ceremonies of former students, friends and associates. To put it simply, he has made life better in his neighborhood.

He was preceded in death by his parents; first wife, and one brother, Darrel.

You are encouraged to write a personal, special memory about Stanley to be left for the family at visitation or mail to the family at Rural Route 1, P.O. Box 61, Johnsonville, IL 62850. For more information, you may call Frank and Bright Funeral Home at 662-2141.