Deacon lived life with 'unshakable integrity'

October 18, 2023

Some people have a “bucket list” of things they want to do and experiences they want to have before they die. 
Deacon Dave Bartemes didn’t have a bucket list. 

“He had a tanker truck list and, though he checked off many if not most of the things on it, his tanker truck list never expired because when he checked off one thing, he’d just add another,” said his friend, Father Dan Krettek. 
Deacon Bartemes, who embraced experiences and lifelong learning, died Oct. 11 at age 85. He leaves behind his wife of 62 years, Cora, sons Kevin, Paul, and Brian and their families. 

Father Krettek remembers being a newly ordained priest assigned to St. Pius X Parish in Urbandale, and how warmly the Bartemes family welcomed him.

He also remembers the vast and majestic experiences Deacon Bartemes experienced as he embraced life.
“He experienced mountain climbing, traveling near and far, riding his bike, hunting, fishing, designing and building things both large and small, cooking, eating, drinking, feeding others, building, selling, laughing and on and on. Vast and varied experiences brought great joy to Dave’s life in the here  and now,” he said in a homily at the funeral for Deacon Bartemes on Oct. 16.

Deacon Bartemes had a divine wisdom, with a knowledge not just of how things work, but of how life works, said Father Krettek. 

Born and raised in West Virginia, Deacon Bartemes met his “pretty lady” Cora Perrine at West Virginia State University.

“He grew up loving to roam over the mountains and the hills and loving trees,” she said. 

What attracted her to him was his “unshakable integrity.”

“You never had to ever wonder whether Dave would do the right thing,” Cora said. “He had an unerring sense of what is the right thing, the moral thing, the high-ground thing to do.”

He served in the U.S. Army, then worked for Honeywell, which brought the family to Des Moines. 

“Dave Bartemes was one of the nicest people I’ve ever known,” said his friend, Deacon Jerry Barnwell. “I am very fortunate to call him a good friend, and his wife, also.”

Deacon Barnwell became familiar with his friend in a small deacon sharing group. “He was very proactive for the poor, and very proactive for prisoners and prison ministry,” he said.

Deacon Bartemes read an article in the newspaper about jail ministry at the Polk County Jail and met the chaplain, who said he needed Catholics to visit the Catholics in jail. 

Deacon Bartemes responded. 

He was ordained a deacon in 1986, and continued to serve the incarcerated at prisons in Mitchellville, and later at Newton.

Deacon Bartemes was an author, penning two publications.

He wrote the story of how the restored permanent diaconate evolved in the Des Moines Diocese, The Permanent Diaconate in the Diocese of Des Moines: The Early Years, and about his experience attempting to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa with other cancer survivors, We Call her Kili.

He also had a love for the outdoors, particularly his “happy place” on his tree farm, said Deacon Jim Houston.

He had a lifelong passion for planting trees, which he did in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and on his dream farm in southern Iowa, where “he had planted 30,000 hardwood trees to preserve the land and bless the future,” said Cora.
Deacon Bartemes will be remembered for how he loved.

“Dave’s love for God was thoroughly incarnate in how he loved life itself, those whom he loved, those who loved him, and the good earth that sustains us,” said Father Krettek. 

He loved his family.

He loved the Church and serving in the Church as a deacon: teaching, preaching, and performing works of charity.

“Dave loved the poor, whatever form their poverty took: economic, social, mental, emotional, you name it,” said Father Krettek. 

He loved Dr. Richard Deming, the Above and Beyond cancer community, Emmaus House, his alma mater West Virginia State University and St. Pius X Parish.

“He didn’t just have an enlightened and lively mind and lifestyle. He also had a very enlightened and lively heart, and that came through in the way he loved,” said Father Krettek.