Dr. Aeilt E. Sents, age 98, of Washington, Iowa, died Tuesday, February 18, 2020, at the Washington County Hospital.
Celebration of life services will be held 2:30 p.m. Saturday, February 22, 2020, at the main dining room of the United Presbyterian Home with services conducted by Chaplain Andrew Zuehlke. Interment will take place at a later date. Memorials have been established for Louisa County Pheasants Forever or the Wheaton College Aeilt E. and Adeline Sents Endowed Scholarship Fund. The Jones & Eden Funeral Home is assisting with arrangements. Online condolences may be sent for Aeilt’s family through the web at www.jonesfh.com
Aeilt E. Sents, son of Eilerd A. and Anna (Conrad) Sents, was born June 22, 1921, at the family home in rural Grundy County, Iowa.
His elementary education was completed in a one room country school. His high school education was completed in the Aplington High School after which he attended Chillicothe Business College. From there he accepted a position with the Atchison and Topeka Railroad in Chanute, Kansas. After several years he enrolled in Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Aeilt’s college education was interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Reserve Corp, unassigned. When called to active duty he failed to meet the physical requirement and was given an honorable discharge. After receiving his military discharge, he resumed his college education and received a Liberal Arts Degree, at Wheaton College with a major in history. He continued his education by enrolling in graduate school at the University of Iowa and completed the work for a Master’s Degree in History.
Aeilt began his teaching career in the Junior College and High School in Red Oak, Iowa. After two years, he accepted a position in the Senior High School in Rock Island, Illinois. Four years later he was offered a position in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He continued his graduate studies attending summer schools at the University of Iowa and Harvard University. Upon receiving a Study Grant from the state of Wisconsin, he enrolled at the University of Missouri and completed the work and received the degree, Doctor of Philosophy in History.
He enjoyed the classroom and students and after thirty years retired from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Department of History as Emeritus Professor. While in the classroom he was a member of several historical organizations. After he retired he retained his membership in the organization “Conference of Faith and History” of which he was a founding member.
On August 3, 1954, he was married to Adeline E. Humphreys in Iowa City. Their union was blessed with a daughter, Eleanor, and a son, Steven. After leaving Rock Island in 1956, they moved to Whitewater where they lived for the next fifty years until they moved to the United Presbyterian Home in Washington, Iowa. While living in Whitewater, he was a member of the United Methodist Church. To help the church in its Sesquicentennial Celebration he wrote a two volume History of the Methodist Church in Whitewater. As a member of the church he served on various committees and boards. He was a founding member of the Whitewater Kiwanis Breakfast Club and wrote a history of the first twenty-five years of the organization.
Aeilt loved and enjoyed classical music and opera. During the New York Metropolitan season, his Saturday afternoons were frequently spent reading and listening to the Metropolitan productions.
He enjoyed local and foreign travel. In 1958 Aeilt assisted in conducting a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater fifty-five day tour around the world. In retirement, he and Adeline enjoyed Elderhostel tours, two to China, to Russia, European countries and domestic cities and places of interest. They also attended a three week study tour of Israel. For more than twenty years, their retirement winters were spent on the Gulf of Mexico, in Gulf Shores, Alabama. No summer was complete without the family spending a week fishing on a northern Minnesota Lake. In the past twenty or more years these excursions were reduced to two people, Aeilt and his favored fishing and hunting partner, son Steven. Each summer they spent a week fishing in Canadian waters, catching and releasing the elusive muskies. During the last months of the year, several days each month were spent hunting Iowa pheasants.
Aeilt is survived by the strength and love of his life, his wife, Adeline; the joy and blessings for all of their lives, daughter, Eleanor and son, Steven. This blessing was extended with addition of son-in-law, Bruce and daughter-in-law, Melissa and five grandchildren and two great granddaughters. Each of the family was special and his prayer for each was that they would find meaning, purpose, direction and fulfillment in life, loving God and obeying His commandments.
