Rex E. Hobble, 99, passed away at the Diversicare of Sedgwick health care center
October 19,. 2013, 11 days short of his 100th birthday. Visitation will take place Thursday October 24 at Peterson
Funeral Home, Newton. Funeral services will be Friday, October 25 at Sedgwick United
Methodist Church followed by interment at Hillside Cemetery with fulll military honors.
Hobble was born to Howard and Cora Bissell Hobble, October 30, 1913 at the family
farm in Putnam. He graduated from Valley Center High School in 1931 and from
Pomona College in California where he studied math and played baseball.
He was drafter into the Army January 1, 1942. As a member of the HQ VII Combat
Engineeer Corps, he was among those who waded ashore on Utah Beach as part of the
D-Day invasion. He survived the Battle of the Bulge and had advanced into Leipzig,
Germany by the end of the war in the European theatre. He was decorated with five bronze stars
and the French Croix de Guerre. Hobble was preparing for deployment to the Pacific
when Japan surrendered and he was honorable discharged September 3, 1945.
He married Leona Olson November 4, 1951 at New Gottland Lutheran Church,
McPherson. She passed away February 1999.
A lifelong Sedgwick resident, Hobble farmed in Sedgwick and McPherson. He was
also a substitute rural route mail carrier for 33 years and built several houses. Hobble was a member of the Sedgwick Methodist Church, the American Legion andthe Harvey County Farm Bureau.
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Survivers: daughter Linda (Kevin) Fewell, Kansas City, Misssouri; son Jon Hobble and Christopher
Penn, Lawrence, Kansas; grandson Colin Fewell, Chicato; sister, Avis Duncan Bidwell,
Manhattan.