Sad news to share. Our thoughts are with you, Andy.
Karen (Davis) Leibold
Art Hoppin, 57
Archeologist, accomplished chef, naturalist, and mentor, Art Hoppin, died Thursday, March 13, 2008, at the age of 57. A memorial service will be held at Good Shepherd Church in Decorah on Saturday, March 22 at 1:00 p.m.
Son of Margery and Richard Hoppin, Art attended University High School in Iowa City, where he grew up in a home that fostered a quiet love for learning, an incisive intellectual rigor, a respect for the past, and a commitment to the future. Art’s family went along when his father taught at geology field schools in the Black Hills and Big Horn Mountains and there Art developed a deep reverence for nature. Early on, he also became an avid, lifelong Iowa Hawkeyes fan.
He graduated from Luther College in 1973 and, from that time onward, Northeast Iowa was Art’s home base. He bought land north of Decorah near Burr Oak and built a house to share with his wife, Karla Presler, whom he had met at Luther College. They married in 1979. It was the landscape, the rivers, the flora, and fauna that convinced Art and Karla to make northeast Iowa their home. A born naturalist and woodsman, Art knew how to listen to the natural world as few can. It was a source of profound joy for him. It also turned him into a fiercely competitive morel hunter each spring. He developed a fondness for angling and cherished the fishing trips he took with his close friend and neighbor Lindsay Lee.
Art was a highly respected archeologist, working on jobs contracted through college professors, the State of Iowa, and Bear Creek Archeology. He loved the work, though it could be both backbreaking and painstaking and often kept him from his beloved home for long periods of time. He was also a superb cook and supplemented his archeology income with work as a chef at the Cliff House, McCaffrey’s Restaurant, and The Café Deluxe. His special Sunday night suppers at the Café may have been Decorah’s first excursion into gourmet dining.
Art was the sort of private man to whom, nevertheless, other people are naturally drawn. His gentle humor and nonjudgmental wisdom attracted people to him as much as his ubiquitous smile and the glint in his eye. Both as an archeologist and as a cook, Art had the opportunity to work with and guide many young people who remember him as a friend and mentor.
Art knew the value of a secret–whether it was a personal confidence or where the best morels were hiding–but perhaps the greatest secret he kept was how such a quiet, private man could touch so many lives.
Art is survived by his wife Karla Presler, of rural Decorah; his mother Margery and his father Richard, of Iowa City; his brothers Andy of Minneapolis, and Charles (wife Bonnie) of Atlanta; his sister Jan Hensel (husband Paul) of Minneapolis; four nephews and two nieces.