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William John ‘Bill’ O’Brien

Charles City: Funeral Mass for William John O’Brien, 63, of Charles City, will be 10:30 a.m., Monday, Feb. 26, 2018, at St. Mary Catholic Church in Greene with Rev. Msgr. Walter Brunkan officiating. Burial will be in St. Mary Catholic Cemetery, Greene.

William John ‘Bill’ O’Brien
William John ‘Bill’ O’Brien

Visitation will be from 4-7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018, at Retz Funeral Home, 519 N. First St. Greene, with a Rosary Service at 7 p.m., conducted by the Knights of Columbus.

William J. O’Brien was born Aug. 26, 1954, to Maurice and Bernadine O’Brien of Greene, IA. He attended the Greene schools, graduating in 1974. Bill then attended Loras College in Dubuque earning a Bachelor Degree in Special Education. In 1976, Bill was married to Lucy Marzen. The couple had five children.

Bill was very proud of the fact that even though he didn’t have a driver’s license, it did not keep him from getting around on his own via his hitch hiking skills. Thumbing around Iowa was his norm. He was quite proud of his longest trek which took him from Iowa to San Francisco.

Bill taught special education in Iowa for five years, then temporarily hung up his “teacher hat” to be a stay home dad. His kids recall that though cooking was not his forte, he made a pretty mean green bean casserole dish. For his children, staying home sick with their dad was always a special treat because it usually meant that he would walk to Hardees to get them food and would let them watch reruns on Nickelodeon.

As a little boy, Bill loved to watch TV Westerns and his early childhood aspiration was to be a cowboy. That idea never really left him, so after his divorce, he decided to answer the call to “Go West, Young Man!” He first moved to South Dakota teaching on an Indian Reservation and then pursued the last frontier by moving to St. Paul Island, AK, where he taught special education until he was diagnosed with cancer in November.

In his free time, Bill enjoyed watching Westerns, cheering for the Green Bay Packers, and bating anyone into a political debate. He was an avid reader and was rarely seen without a book. In Pre-Google days, he was even known to be seen reading an encyclopedia from cover to cover.

Bill was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by the five children or as he preferred to call them, “Fab Five; Erin (Chris) Major, Overland Park, Kansas, Sgt.Sean O’Brien, Charles City, Dr. Brigid O’Brien, New Orleans, Nathan O’Brien, Charles City, and Ryan O’Brien, New York; two grandsons Grant and Brooks Major, brothers Gerald (Sue) and Mike O’Brien, sisters Mary (Randy) Trunk, Katherine (Larry) Kroeger, Lori (Dan) Moriarty, Anne (Pat) O’Meara and several nieces and nephews.

Memorials may be directed to the family at P.O. Box 219, Greene, Iowa, 50636.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Retz Funeral Home, 519 N. First St. Greene, Iowa, 50636; 641-823-4457; www.retzfh.com.

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