Services will be held Oct. 31at St Brigid Catholic Church in Grand Junction for David Eugene Higgins, 75, of Grand Junction.
Fr Steven Brodersen of Carroll will be celebrant of the Mass of the Resurrection. Sheilah Pound will be soloisit, accompanied by Lois Last.
Interment will be at Mount Calvary Cemetery at a later date.
David “Bear” Higgins, age 75, passed away at Iowa Methodist Medical Center on October 25, 2022. David was born Sept. 26, 1947, to Thomas and Wava (Rose) Higgins. He was blessed with three older brothers, Lyle, Wayne and Kenneth, and four younger siblings, Gary, Dale, Ellamae and Rosemary.
David was united in marriage to Joan Babb on January 12, 1975. They settled in Grand Junction to raise a family and had two children, Amy and Joel. During his life, David was involved in many organizations throughout Greene County including Knights of Columbus, Greene County Extension Council and the Elks. He was also an active member of the St. Brigid Catholic Church for many years.
The Higgins’ boys all loved to learn from their dad and David was no exception. He listened and learned and carried that knowledge with him throughout his life.
As a young man he followed his brother Lyle into the Warner Oil business and managed two stations in Missouri. He came back home to Greene County to farm, where he curated a herd of Charolais cattle that were his pride and joy. After moving off the farm and into a home in Grand Junction, he co-owned a John Deere dealership in Harcourt for several years before eventually finding his passion in the insurance industry with Life Investors and Midwest Crop Insurance. In the farming ‘off-season’ David worked for Meriwether Wilson & Company in Perry as a certified tax preparer. Throughout his life David’s love of the farm was always evident and it was clear you could take the boy off the farm, but you could never take the farm out of the boy.
Throughout their lives when the Higgins siblings would get together and couldn’t remember a fact about Greene County, they would phone their ‘lifeline’ David, because he was always a wealth of local knowledge!
Preceding him in death were his son Joel; his parents; brothers Lyle and Kenny; parents-in-law Walter and Wilma Babb; brother-in-law, Walter Babb; and his nephew Kriss Higgins.
David is survived by his wife Joan; his daughter Amy (Charlie) Riske; former daughter-in-law Jana (Flook Higgins) Taylor; brothers Wayne (Marla) Higgins, Gary (Jane) Higgins and Dale (Sue) Higgins; sisters Ellamae (Bob) Hegna and Rosie Washburn; sisters-in-law Kay Higgins and Judy Babb; as well as numerous beloved nieces and nephews.
Services by Slininger-Schroeder Funeral Home, Jefferson
