George Anderson

George Allan Anderson, age 96, died May 1, 2026. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, August 15th at United Methodist Church, Gowrie. Visitation will be one hour prior, at the church, with internment following the service at the Gowrie Township Cemetery. Luncheon will follow at the church. Laufersweiler's Palmer & Sons Funeral Home of Gowrie is serving the family.

George Anderson was born March 11, 1930, in Newman Grove, Nebraska, the son of Clarence E. and Wyllma Ruth Knapp Anderson. He attended school there and in Denison, Lytton, Yetter, and Gowrie, Iowa, and graduated from Gowrie Consolidated High School in 1947. He enlisted in the US Navy in 1948 and trained as an Air Controlman before he was appointed Midshipman in1949.

George attended Missouri University as a Midshipman, graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA (with Distinction) in History and was commissioned as an ensign in the U. S. Navy. He served in the Pacific as Assistant Navigator on the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany during the Korean War and later on the carrier USS Bon Homme Richard. George also received a Certificate in Political Economics from the University of Copenhagen where he was a Fulbright Scholar, studied labor economics at American University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and received a Master of Science in Education from the University of Southern California.

ln 1952 George married his high school classmate, Eleanor F. Pohl.

After his naval service, George joined the US Diplomatic Service in 1956. Overseas, he served as a labor, political and economic specialist at US Embassies in Copenhagen (1957-59), Oslo (1963-67), Brussels (1971-74), and Vienna (1974-1979), and as military-political affairs officer from 1968 to 1969 at the US Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam. While In D.C. (1960-63) he edited President Eisenhower's Top Secret Daily Brief and then supervised European and Soviet Affairs in the Secretariat of Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Later, (1970-71) he joined Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird's Vietnam Task Force at the Pentagon, receiving the Secretary of Defense's Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the highest award for civilian service at the Defense Department,.

Retiring from the Foreign Service in 1980, George worked as Vice-President of United Technologies (Europe) in Brussels, Belgium, then as President of Widcom International, for which he oversaw the marketing in Europe and the Middle East of the world's first Videophones. He returned to the United States in 1987 where he joined the Arizona State Legislature's Auditor General's Performance Audit Division.

After retiring in 1997, George and Eleanor divided their time between their homes in Gowrie and South Carolina, enjoying traveling and visiting far-flung friends for several years. In their eighties, they chose to simplify their lives, settling permanently in Gowrie where they had maintained a home and close connections with lifelong friends and family. They remained deeply involved in their church and community until relocating to Friendship Haven in February 2025.

George was preceded in death by his wife of 72 years, Eleanor, his parents, and by his brothers, Clarence Jr., Ruel, and Albert, and his sisters, Alyce, Betty, and Ardell. He is survived by five children, Travis, Miles, Greta, Jon and Grant, fifteen grandchildren and seven (soon ten) great-grandchildren, by his sister-in-law, Avis Pohl of Ames, and by many nieces and nephews.