grave import

Obituary

The funeral for Dr. Howard E. Berry, 29, of rural Batavia who was killed Sunday in a traffic accident near Keosauqua, will be Friday at 11 am at the First Methodist Church in Fairfield.
A graveside service will be held in the Aspen Grove Cemetery at Burlington at 1 pm. The Rev. James Dendler of the Fairfield Church will be in charge of services. The body is at the Raymond Funeral Home and friends may call there this afternoon and evening.
Dr. Berry was born Aug. 6, 1937, at North English, the son of Howard K. and Dorothy Pennington Berry. He attended schools in North English, West Burlington, Denmark, and Fairfield. He had been a resident of Jefferson County for eight years.
He received his BA degree in 1960 from the University of Iowa, where he graduated from the College of Medicine in 1963. He had returned recently from VietNam after 18 months of service in the US Navy. He was a member of the Methodist Church.
Survivors include his parents, both patients at University Hospitals in Iowa City following the wreck; a sister, Mrs. Graeme Berlyn of Handen, Conn.; a brother Jack Berry of Seattle, Wash; and a grandmother, Mrs. Mamie Pennington of Fairfield.
News Article about the accident:
Two persons lost their lives in a violent head-on crash on Highway No. 1 near Mt. Zion in VanBuren County shortly after noon Sunday.
One was killed instantly and the other died in an ambulance just south of Fairfield en route to Iowa City. Two others were injured, one critically and the other seriously.
Theodore Ernest Padkins, 64, rural route 1, Birmingham, was killed instantly in the crash.
Dr. Howard Eugene Berry, 29, who had just returned from a tour of duty in VietNam as a Navy doctor, was driving the other car involved. He was still alive at the scene of the crash but died en route to the hospital.
Those injured include Mr. and Mrs. Howard Berry, Batavia, parents of Dr. Berry. Both are patients in the University hospital in Iowa City where they were taken following the accident. They were riding with their son.
Dorothy Berry, 60, was listed in critical condition at the Iowa City hospital last night; and Howard K. Berry, 69, was listed in serious condition.
There were no other witnesses to the violent crash that took place when the two cars met virtually head-on on a slight curve about five miles north of Keosauqua.
Officers said that tire tracks on the pavement showed that the Padkins car swerved into the other lane of traffic momentarily as it started into the curve, returned to its own lane of traffic, then swerved again to the left and directly into the pat of the Berry car. Padkins was going toward Keosauqua and Berry was driving toward Fairfield.
It is known that Padkins suffered a heart condition officers said it is possible that he suffered an attack just before the fatal crash, causing him to lose control of his vehicle.