Jeffrey Houston Green

Jeffrey Houston Green
December 27, 1947 – March 31, 2024

Jeff Green died in his seventy-seventh year, on Easter Sunday, after short stays in Methodist Hospital, and Taylor House, Unity Point Hospice in Des Moines, Iowa. Both places provided fine care for him, and deeply appreciated help for his family. He had been struck by a car during one of his customary long afternoon walks, and did not recover.

Jeff was an inveterate daily walker, enjoying the wonderful walking-trail system in Des Moines, as well as the sidewalks in his current and previous neighborhoods: Tonawanda Drive, Urbandale, and Beaverdale’s Frank Smith Center, where he enjoyed his congenial neighbors. His joy in walking harmonized with his love of nature and especially of being in the woods. Walking also got him to his neighborhood library, where he was a regular visitor. Reading was a life-long pleasure, informed by his ever-present maps and reference materials.

He imparted those loves of reading and of nature to his niece and nephews, for whom he was a wonderful uncle. He had a dramatic way of reading nursery rhymes that was absolutely unique. In fact, the whole family could enjoy hearing him read when we gathered at Okoboji.

Okoboji also fostered Jeff’s great love of fishing. He fished there, as well as in Alaska and Canada, and in trout streams in Iowa, which he helped to conserve and improve. A few years ago, he was able to donate his fly-tying equipment to further educate the craft to new young fishing enthusiasts.

Jeff attended Roosevelt High School and Simpson College. His main work was at the family business, Iowa Supply Company. His life before retirement was affected by a little-understood, but very real condition, a Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder, a chronic misalignment of a person’s circadian rhythms with the way most people experience their days. He was a night owl; it was not a choice nor a moral failure, but how his body worked. We hope that the fact that people can vary in their daily physiological rhythms will be understood and accommodated better in the future.

Jeff was the son of James Mershon Green and Susan Houston Green. He is survived by his sisters, Martha Green of Des Moines and Frances MacFarlane of Mulmur, Ontario; brothers-in-law, Jack Porter and Don MacFarlane; nephews, Chris Porter, Adam Pasquella, and Andrew Pasquella; niece, Catherine Porter; nieces-in-law, Kirsten Plowman and Nicole Bogdas; four great-nephews and nieces; and California cousins. We will all miss him.

Arrangements have been handled by Hamilton’s on Westown Funeral Home; Jeff’s cremains will join four older generations of his family at Masonic Cemetery in Des Moines, IA. There will be a memorial gathering this summer; details will be posted on HamiltonsFuneralHome.com.

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