Ruth Dacken

Tahlequah, OK~ Ruth Dacken passed away in the early morning hours of November 14, 2012. The funeral service will be held in the chapel of Go Ye Village, 1201 West 4th Street, Tahlequah, OK, at 3pm, Tuesday, November 20th. The burial service will be at the Garvin United Methodist Cemetery in Boyd, TX, at 3pm, Wednesday, November 21st. Ruth graduated from Fertile, IA, high school in 1933 and from Waldorf College in 1935. She taught for several years and then attended Moody and graduated from there in 1942. She was high school valedictorian and class speaker at graduation from Moody. She received a Distinguished Alum Award from Waldorf in 1982. She was a TEAM missionary in South Africa from 1944 to 1981. Her work began in Swaziland where she first taught high school and then founded the Women's Division of the Union Bible Institute in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, RSA. She married Lester Dacken on June 13, 1981. They worked together ministering in 5 small Methodist Churches in the Ft. Worth Area of Texas. In 1988 they moved to Go Ye Village where Lester died in December 2003. Dacken, Lester Jerry 1905-2003 Service for Lester Jerry Dacken, 98, of Tahlequah, Okla., formerly of Boyd, will be Thursday, Jan.1, at 2:30 p.m. at Go Ye Village Chapel in Tahlequah. The Rev. Paul Tavener and Dr. David Blake will officiate. Burial will be Friday, Jan. 2, at 3 p.m. at Garvin Methodist Church Cemetery in Wise County. Dacken died Saturday, Dec. 27, 2003, in Tahlequah. He was born May 28, 1905, in Lone Rock, Iowa, to Frank and Marie (Helgens) Dacken. He married Gladys Hall and lived in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. In 1942, Dacken entered Moodys Bible Institute. After graduating from Wheaton College in 1946, he graduated from McCormick Seminary in 1949. In 1976, Dacken lived in Boyd where he served as a circuit minister for five rural Methodist churches. He did this for 12 years until he retired at age 83. After the death of his first wife, Dacken married Ruth Hall in 1981 and in 1988 moved to Go Ye Village where he was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Tahlequah and served on the board of directors for Hope House. He is survived by his wife; daughter, Esther Lindgren and husband, Jim; two grandchildren, Sarah Fravel and husband, David,and Rebekah Davis and husband, Mike, and six great-grandchildren, D.J. and Christine Fravel and Rachel, Shannon, Carolyn and Abigail Davis. Pallbearers will be Ross Smith, Wayne Gute, Jim Lindgren, Jay Porterfield, Wes Weldon and Ben Segerstrom. Memorials may be made to the Go Ye Assistance Society Team Evangelical Alliance Mission, Wheaton, Ill., P.O. Box 969, Carol Stream, Ill.