For more than 100 years and four generations, the Powell Family has maintained a funeral business oriented to serving families in our communities.
When Lewis J. Powell, Sr. established the first Powell Funeral Home in 1911, in South English, Iowa, there were no paved roads in Iowa, hearses were horse-drawn, and funeral directors generally operated other businesses as well. In the elder Powell’s case, he also owned and operated a pump and repair service and a hardware store.
In 1946, Lewis Powell, Sr. and his wife, Ida, moved to Wellman, where they purchased the Bidwell Funeral Home, and Lewis Powell Jr., who had graduated from Goshen College and had become a funeral director in Indiana, returned with his wife Rachel and family to South English, to work with the family business. The South English funeral home continued separately until 1991, when it merged with the North English facility established in 1957 with the purchase of the Mahannah Funeral Home.
In 1955 Lewis and Rachel Powell moved to Keota with the purchase of the Marsh Funeral Home. Jared (Jerry) Powell, the third generation of the Powell Family, attended Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana and graduated from Wisconsin Institute of Mortuary Science, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jared and his wife Jacque (Conrad) joined the family business in 1964, living in Wellman until moving to Williamsburg in November 1999.
Robert Huber is a graduate of Mid-Prairie High School and the Wisconsin Institute of Mortuary Science in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Robert has been a licensed funeral Director and Manager of Powell Funeral Home in North English since 1972.
In 1993 the Yoder-Powell Funeral Home was established in Kalona. Charles Yoder, a graduate of Mid-Prairie High School and a 1992 graduate of the Worsham College of Mortuary Science in Chicago, now serves as funeral director and manager in Kalona as well as the funeral home in Wellman.
