Eddie F. Holdsworth

Eddie Fredrick Holdsworth was born November 10, 1923, the son of Ed and Emma Holdsworth. He died Thursday, December 22, 2016, at the Manning Regional Healthcare Center in Manning, Iowa, at the age of ninety-three.
Eddie was born at home in Shelby County, Iowa and was baptized in Christ on April 20, 1930, at the Congregational Church in Harlan, Iowa by Pastor William Bast. He received his education at the Tennant Consolidated School in Tennant, Iowa. He graduated in 1942 and rented a farm one-half mile from the home place, and helped his father for a couple years. In 1946, he moved with the family to Manilla, Iowa where his father purchased the place where Eddie was raised.
Later that year on August 20, 1946, Eddie was joined in marriage to Margaret Sorensen in the Lutheran Church in Harlan. They made their home with Eddie’s parents for two years. Then in 1948, Eddie and Margaret moved to a farm east of Manilla where they farmed until the spring of 1951 when they moved southeast of Westside. In 1964, they adopted two children, a brother and sister, Ron, 6, and Von, 5.
Eddie also did custom work for neighbors and friends. He and Margaret enjoyed dancing, eating out, and visiting with relatives and friends, and occasionally traveling. After the death of Margaret, Eddie continued farming for three years and also helped Willis and Juhl Peterson with their farming operation for nearly 20 years after he quit farming.
Eddie and Bernice Nihsen began a friendship having met during an ice storm that resulted in their marriage at the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa, on September 6, 1984. They lived on the farm until the following spring, then moving to Arcadia in 1985. Eddie’s interests included making replicas of farm places, churches, Noah’s Ark, windmills, Andy Williams’ birthplace and the depot in Wall Lake where Andy’s father worked. Also he produced a replica of the Town of Arcadia which is on display at a historic museum in Carroll, and Nativity sheds and crosses for the Bible classes in the Lutheran Church. In November of 2010, Eddie moved into an apartment in Arcadia, where he currently lived.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his wives, Margaret in 1981 and Bernice in 2009; one brother, John Holdsworth; and two sisters: Helen Barrett and her husband John, and Grace Tindle and her husband Herb. Survivors include: one brother, Melvin and his wife, Clarion; one son, Ron; one daughter, Von; two stepsons: Vernis and his wife, Jean, and Lonnie; one stepdaughter, Laurie; one sister-in-law, Virgie; brother-in-law, Harold and his wife, Ellen; grandchildren; other relatives and friends.