Dawn Van Buren

Dawn (Slack) Van Buren, 82 of Adel, Iowa passed away March 27, 2019 at the Kavanagh House on 56th in Des Moines. Funeral services will be at 2:30 PM Monday, April 1, 2019 at Faith Lutheran Church in Adel, where she was a member, with burial following at Oakdale Cemetery. Family will greet friends Sunday, March 31st from 5-7 PM at Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home – McCalley Chapel in Adel. Dawn was baptized and a member of the First Baptist Church of Tullahoma, TN. She worked in the Data Processing Dept. of Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, and that is where she met “Van” Van Buren who was working for IBM. They were married in 1967, and Dawn worked for a business college and then for IBM in Atlanta, GA. They lived in Atlanta, Basel, Switzerland, Greenville, SC, Dallas and Irving, TX during Van’s IBM career. She helped design and then lovingly decorated and maintained homes for their 51 years together in Atlanta, South Carolina, Texas and Iowa. She wanted to retire in Iowa for the quality of life here. Dawn was a fabulous Southern cook, winning 17 ribbons at the Texas and Iowa State Fairs. Neighbors and friends all over the country exchanged recipes with her. She compiled cookbooks for young cooks. She was an avid Modern Western Style Square Dance Club member with Van wherever they lived, and they travelled to many dance festivals all over the US, before retiring in Iowa. She was an active neighborhood, community and civic leader wherever she lived, and helped establish Neighborhood Watch programs in Dallas and Irving Texas. Dawn was the public safety chair of Valley Ranch Development in Texas, and wrote for the Irving Journal. She wrote articles for the Adel Living Magazine for 10 years. Dawn was a member and officer of the Adel Women’s Club, P.E.O., and the Board of Directors for the Crisis Intervention Center. Dawn is survived by her husband Van, of Adel; niece Cindy West and her family of Manchester, TN; and multiple cousins in TN, KY and SC. She was preceded in death by her parents, Thomas and Hazel (Ragan) Slack, and a brother, Rudolph Slack. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be directed to the Adel Public Library or the Crisis Interventions Center in Adel. Online condolences may be left at www.caldwellparrish.com