Gene M. Rohr, 83, of Grinnell, IA passed away July 21, 2023 at the Mayflower Community in Grinnell.

A funeral service will be held at 1pm on Saturday August 5th at Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell.

Visitation will be held one hour before the service.

Memorials may be designated to Mayflower Homes Foundation mailed in c/o of Smith funeral home, PO BOX 368, Grinnell, IA 50112.

Gene was born March 20, 1940 to Carl E. Rohr and Ruth (Windahl) Rohr in Red Oak, Iowa, and grew up in Carroll, on a farm east of Searsboro, and in Grinnell. He graduated from Grinnell HS in 1958 and attended Simpson College for two years before transferring to the Univ. of Iowa where he earned B.A. and M.Sc. degrees in Geology (1963; 1965). Following college, he was employed by AMOCO in their exploration and production subsidiary for 23 years with assignments in Houston, Chicago & Denver as well as foreign assignments in Libya, Norway, Egypt and Trinidad. He was a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and many regional Geological Societies, attending their annual conferences and field trips. He published several papers on the geology of the South American/Caribbean Plate Boundary zone.

In 1968 Gene married Raquel Wharton of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. They had two children: Theron, born Dec. 30, 1968 in Houston, and Francesca, born April 22, 1970 in Tripoli, Libya. They enjoyed many vacations together traveling in Europe during his career in the oil industry and made many friends within the expatriate communities in which they lived.

Gene enjoyed a wide variety of outdoor activities including Tennis, Golf, Scuba Diving, Skiing, Fishing, Camping, Hiking, Sailing and bird watching. He loved reading about Archeology, History and Science and visited many ancient sites around the Mediterranean region.

Gene was divorced from Raquel in 1983 and retired from the oil industry in 1991. He lived in Denver and worked for Colorado Professional Medical Company in their warehouse and skied, fished and hiked in his beloved Rocky Mountains. In 2002 he retired and moved back to Grinnell, Iowa, to be near his parents.

In retirement he was a volunteer water monitor with the Arbor Lake Watershed Group which was recognized for outstanding work by IOWATER at their annual conference. He also wrote a family history and a memoir. In 2019 Gene moved to the Mayflower Community where he found great enjoyment in writing poetry and with others in the poetry club had several pieces chosen for publication in the annual Lyrical Iowa anthologies published by The Iowa Poetry Association.

He was preceded in death by his mother Ruth Rohr (June 18, 2008) and his father Carl Rohr (October, 19, 2011). He is survived by his brother Gerald Rohr, former wife Raquel Wharton Rohr of Natick, MA, son Theron Rohr of Los Angeles, CA, and daughter Francesca Rohr and grandson Nico Retsky of Petaluma, CA, as well as nephews Gary Rohr, Richard Rohr and Thomas Rohr, all of whom live in the Denver, CO, area.