Ralph Dean

Services for Ralph Dean, 80, Houston, Mo., will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Craig-Hurtt Chapel in Mountain Grove. Burial will be in Rock Springs Cemetery in Texas County.Mr. Dean died Sunday, March 5, 2006, at Houston House Nursing Center in Houston.He was born July 18, 1925, near Rayborn, the son of James and Ethel Lathrom Dean. He grew up in Rayborn and attended Mountain Grove High School. He graduated in 1947 from Central High School in Springfield.Mr. Dean served in the U.S. Navy during World War II aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Shippley Bay CVE85 in the South Pacific. He and his wife bought a farm in Texas County in 1950. He worked at International Shoe Co. in Houston until the early 1960s and Brown Shoe Co. in Mountain Grove until he retired in 1986.He was a member of New Rock Springs Freewill Baptist Church near Bendavis.He married Velma Fay Zirschky on July 3, 1947. She survives, of the home.Other survivors include a son, Donald, Houston; four daughters, Virginia Clark and Janice Wood, both of Houston, Wanda Pointer, Republic, and Donna Robertson, Bendavis; three brothers, Alvin, Cabool, Russell, Springfield, and Marshall, Mountain Grove; a sister, Parthenia Bickford, Lawrence, Kan.; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.The family will receive friends from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at the chapel.