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Carl B. Potaracke

August 29, 1941 - November 25, 2020

Carl B. Potaracke, 79, of Ankeny passed away November 25, 2020.
Funeral mass will be held, 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, December 1, 2020 at Our Ladies of Immaculate Heart Church in Ankeny.

The mass is available via livestream at: https://olih-church.squarespace.com/mass

Visitation will be held Monday, November 30, 2020 from 5-7 p.m. at Memorial Services of Iowa Funeral Home (4208 N. Ankeny Blvd).

Carl was a dedicated family man, first as one of ten children growing up on his family’s farm on Grandad’s Bluff in La Crosse, WI, and remained close to his family his entire life. He enjoyed writing and receiving letters, when that was the style, and later in life adopted email and video chat as a way to stay in touch with relatives spread across the country.

Carl was a devoted son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, father in-law, son in-law and brother in-law. He married his wife, Carole, in 1968 and had a daughter, Cindi, and a son, Craig. The family moved from Wisconsin to Ankeny, IA in 1978 where he and his wife lived in the same home until his passing.
Carl was a devout Catholic. He served as mass lector for more than 50 years first at Saint Patrick’s Church in Onalaska, WI and later at Our Ladies of Immaculate Heart Church, and briefly served as an instructor for his children’s Sunday school.

Carl was an honorable Veteran of the United States Army in which he served in Germany for four years in the 1960s.

He was a fixer of things and the most honest and hardest worker of those who knew him. He worked at several different occupations through his life where it was his job to maintain or fix things. He filed fingerprints for the FBI. He worked the boiler room for Viterbo College, Saint Rose Convent and Saint Francis Hospital in La Crosse. He maintained semi-trucks for his brother-in-law’s trucking business, the job that brought he and his family to Iowa. His last jobs were managing maintenance and custodial departments first for a hospital in Des Moines, and then for several different building maintenance companies with contracts throughout the city. He was a restless retiree choosing to work part time including the day he passed.

Carl was a giving friend and neighbor. His entire life, Carl donated blood to the Red Cross through his church. In the winter he would regularly shovel and plow the walks of up and down the street on which his lived. He loved to work with wood and made several pieces of furniture and yard ornaments and birdhouses for family and friends alike.

Carl was a diehard Green Bay Packers fan. As a native of Wisconsin, Carl’s sole sporting interest was watching Packers games on Sunday in the fall. For his 70th birthday, his family bought him a share in the publicly held team making him an official Packers shareholder. He proudly displayed his stock certificate above his favorite reclining chair.

Carl is survived by his wife, Carole; his daughter, Cindi Broekemeier and her husband Ron of Maple Grove, MN; his son Craig, his wife Steph and their daughter Ande Nola of Granville, OH; his brother George; his sisters Patsy, Paulette, and Barbara, as well as many nieces and nephews.

Carl was preceded in death by his father George, his mother Viola; his brothers Robert, Kenneth, and Richard, and his sisters Jeanette and Geraldine.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials be made to Holy Family Catholic School, 1265 East 9th Street, Des Moines, IA 50316, Phone: 515-262-8025, www.hfcsdm.org