Alvin Ashley Read - 1924-2023
Dear Friends

Early Thursday morning, April 20, 2023, at the Israel House in Ames, we lost Alvin Ashley Read, Father, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, and friend to many, after several weeks of declining health.

A gathering is planned for Sunday, May 21, 2023, 4:00 PM, at the Grandon Funeral Home, 414 Lincoln Way, Ames, Iowa, with Pastor Tom Poppe. In keeping with Alvin's conviction that the deceased still has more to give than simply being buried or cremated, his body has been donated to the Des Moines University Body Donor Program for medical education and research.
Alvin, or simply Al, as he was better known in later years, was born to Roy and Freda (Donegan) Read on September 28, 1924. Alvin grew up on a farm near Brooklyn and attended the local public schools graduating from the Brooklyn High School in 1942.

Alvin was enrolled at Iowa State College (later University) in Ames, but with World War 2 in full swing, the US Government drafted him. After training in Northern Idaho, he was assigned to the destroyer, the USS Tills, DE-748, and patrolled the South Pacific during the war. The USS Tills was involved in the liberation of Manila, occupation of Gaum and the landing of occupation troops in Nagasaki harbor a week after the atomic bomb was dropped. He is the last surviving member of the USS Tills.

Discharged in early 1946, Alvin returned to Iowa State College on the GI Bill. On Christmas Eve Day, 1946, Alvin married Ula Jean Rhinehart of Brooklyn, rekindling a romance with Ula Jean who he dated prior to the war. At the time, Ula Jean was teaching at a one-room rural school house.

After their marriage Alvin and Ula Jean moved to Ames Iowa, which was to become their new hometown for the next seventy years. In Ames their five children were born; Terry Marshal 1947-2022 , Richard Craig 1951, Robert Leslie 1954-2020, Randal Scot 1956-2016, and Marsha Jean Olinghouse, 1958.

Alvin continued at Iowa State, achieving his Bachelors, Master and Doctorate Degrees and then taught Electrical and Computer engineering for the next 45 plus years. Al had a two-year stint at the University of the Philippines. Those years provided the Read family the opportunity to travel the world and live in a foreign country, explore foreign cultures and to experience personal, social and cultural growth.

Alvin had a keen interest in good health and was eager to discuss the benefits of vitamins. For over 40 years he was an avid advocate of Shaklee. In retirement he enjoyed discovering his genealogy and could trace the Read family history back through the American Revolution to Scotland, Ireland and then to the Vikings. Alvin always relished his family time, never missing an opportunity to spend time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Alvin was preceded in death by his wife, Ula Jean, in 2017, his parents, three sons, Terry, Robert and Randal, and his brother Marvin Read of Victor Iowa. He is survived by two of his children, Richard and Marsha, his daughter-in-law Lyrio Cloma Read from Des Moines, daughter-in-law Sheryl Read of Hubbard, Iowa and son-in-law Mark Olinghouse from Ankeny, Iowa; Alvin is also survived by six grandchildren and seven great grandchildren: Terry Marc (Jennifer) Read and children Mason and Drake of San Antonio, Texas; Matthew (Jill) Read and children Jacob, Katey, Anna and Daniel, from Dike, Iowa; Jonathan (Elizabeth Barnes) Jackson and son Owen from Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Erika (Brandon) Mears and children Ashton and Joelle from St Charles, Illinois; Heather (John) Phillips, from Ankeny, Iowa; Tomas(Whitney) Read, Hills Air Force Base, Utah.