Private family interment with military honors will be held Thursday, October 22, at the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. CDT on Wednesday, October 21, at the Messiah Lutheran Church in Murdo, with a prayer service at 6:00 p.m. Square dancing was a big part of their lives for 50 years, and Bob was state president of the South Dakota Square Dance Convention.īob thanked the Lord for 60 happy years of marriage with his wife Ellen, and for all the friends and neighbors who made his life so full.īob is survived by his brother Rex Totton and his wife Nancy of Kadoka grandson Travis Justin Holm and great-granddaughter Melinda Holm many nieces and nephews and special friends Butch Feddersen, Dean Faber, and Gerald and Wanda Matthews.īob was preceded in death by his wife Ellen on Novemhis daughter Deanna granddaughter Heather Marie his parents and five brothers Richard, Will, Vern, Kenneth and Jake. George Harris and Jim Root were his main fishing buddies. They joined the Senior Citizens group in Murdo and he volunteered his help there as a fix-up man as well.īob loved to fish which took him and Ellen from Canada to Florida, to the Missouri River (where he once fell in), Yankton, and Mobridge. He did the maintenance on the Messiah Lutheran Church where he and Ellen were members. He was handyman at the Best Western Motel for 15 years, and worked for 20 years for Low Income Housing of Murdo. After the move, Bob drove tractor for Leonard Anker for the first four years. With Bob’s retirement from the Post Office on April 1, 1984, Bob and Ellen moved to Murdo. He spent many hours mowing county and township roads when he had finished his day at the Post Office. He worked for folks around town and farmers in the area. John Lutheran Church and Norris Community building committee chairman. He was fire marshall and handyman of Norris, taught NRA gun safety classes, was secretary-treasurer and head usher at St. Bob applied and was appointed Postmaster on November 1, 1953, a job he kept for 31 years.īob was active in any community where he lived. In the summer of 1953, they heard of a job opening up at the Post Office in Norris. A daughter Deanna Lee was born to the couple on July 13, 1954. They began married life in a 24-foot trailer on the Bill, Leila, and Cars Dithmer place where Bob worked at the time. On October 26, 1952, Bob and Ellen were married at St. Back in Norris, Bob went to work for the county running the road patrol.īob started dating a young country lady named Ellen Weiss. Bob was honorably discharged from the United States Navy on November 21, 1946, and hitchhiked home by way of Hawaii where he had to wait about a week to catch an Army plane that was going to California. They then went on to Iwo Jima, before witnessing the signing of the peace treaty on the USS Missouri. On convoy patrol duty by Okinawa, they were attacked by kamikazes. His first sea duty was on a light cruiser, the Vicksburg and then he transferred to the USS Chicago. He took boot training at Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago and troop training at Mayor Island Naval Station. On December 14, 1944, Bob was called into the Navy. He attended Kadoka High School for his freshman and sophomore year before attending Hot Springs High School his junior and senior year. Settling on a parcel of land on the far southwest end of the county, they were the last homesteaders in Mellette County.īob attended his first eight years of school at Norris, at the Indian Day School seven miles north of Norris. In 1930, they moved again so their sons could go to school in Norris. The family moved into a log house in Washabaugh County in 1928, where they lived for two years. Robert Gene Totton was born Augat home on a place by Hidden Timber, five miles east of Mission, South Dakota, the second son of Wilfred Leroy and Bertha (Rickgauer) Totton.
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