Obituary for Iva Heath

Iva A (Kirkendall) Heath

December 2, 1925 ~ July 14, 2020 (age 94)

Iva Heath, 94, known by many as Ivy, was called to her eternal resting place on July 14, 2020, at Via Christi Village in Ponca City. She entered this world on December 2, 1925, in Center, CO, born to Fred and Ica Almeta Kirkendall.

She is survived by her son Larry Heath (Vickie); their three children and 6 grandchildren; and four sisters, Dorothy Myers, Mary Houser, Shirley Weaver, and Erma Burke.

Iva was preceded in death by her parents; her husband Horace Dale Heath; a sister Nellie Lind; and 4 brothers Forest, Leroy, Fred, and Eugene.

An online service will be held the last week of July, and Iva will later be buried next to her husband Dale in the Newkirk Cemetery, as dates and times allow per state regulations.

In high school, Ivy played volleyball and basketball and sang in the choir. She also wrote a school play and portrayed one of the characters in the play. Ivy and Dale met in 1939 just before Dale joined the Navy. He was aboard ship in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed in 1941 and Ivy did not know if he survived for several weeks. Her happiest day was when she received a telegram that only said “I survived”. They were married in Tulsa in 1943 on their way to New York City where Dale was stationed. Two months later he was deployed to the Pacific Warfront and Iva moved back to Newkirk. After the war, they had their son Larry, and Dale took over his father’s hardware store in Newkirk where Iva was the bookkeeper. Later they would move to Tulsa for a few years and then to Wichita. When Dale retired, they moved back to Newkirk and personally designed and built a home on Kaw Lake. They loved to vacation with friends and family, and Ivy learned to paint, which became her biggest hobby. Several years after Dale passed away in 2007, Ivy moved to Via Christi Village and became best friends with Barbara Overman, who passed away a few months before Ivy.