Shirley Beth Beasley

Shirley Beth Beasley, age 98, of Adel, passed away Friday, September 17, 2021 at MercyOne Medical Center in Des Moines. A Service of Remembrance will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 30, 2021, at Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home - McCalley Chapel in Adel. A private family burial will take place at Violet Hill Cemetery in Perry.

Shirley Beth Beasley was born November 1, 1922, in rural Cumberland, Iowa. She was the second of five children born to Esther (Eblen) and Cleo Worthington.

Beth attended Cumberland School, until the ninth grade, when her family moved to a farm near Redfield. She graduated from Redfield High School in 1938, and enrolled in the American Institute of Business School in Des Moines. After leaving AIB, she lived at home and worked in the Redfield Library and the school library.

When she and Cobb married, they rented a homestead, where they farmed with borrowed horses and machinery, before they moved to a farm where they could do crop share. Beth worked in the fields, maintained a garden and canned the produce, raised chickens to sell the eggs, helped with the livestock and raised three children in a home without electricity and running water. She lived on that farm for nearly 75 years.

During retirement, she enjoyed ceramics, adult school classes, reading and her volunteer work. She served on the Citizens’ Review Committee of the Dallas County Care Facility for many years.

Beth was preceded in death by her husband, Cobb; her daughter, Sandra; her son, Steven; her sisters, Betty Worthington Jolcuvar and Jean Worthington Jones; her brothers, Robert Worthington and Donald Worthington; her brothers-in-law, Paul Jolcuvar and Milt Jones; her sister-in-law, Twyla Parrot Worthington; and her nephews, Paul Jolcuvar and Ken Lipston.

She is survived by her daughter, Susan; her cousin, MaryLou Rogers; her sister-in-law, Mona Sorenson Worthington; her nephew, Howard Jolcuvar and his wife, Constance; her niece, Barbara Jolcuvar Lipston; and her niece and goddaughter, Janis Jolcuvar and her husband, Dennis Bishop.

Memorial donations may be directed to the Adel Public Library or to the family. Online condolences may be left at www.caldwellparrish.com