Joe Barksdale Obituary, Death – Joseph Allen Barksdale passed away on November 16th, 2022 at the hospice care facility known as Taylor House. Des Moines’ Hamilton’s near Highland Memory Gardens, located at 121 NW 60th Avenue, will be the location of the memorial service on Monday, November 28, 2022. The viewing will take place from ten in the morning until twelve in the afternoon, and the service will start at twelve in the afternoon. The interment will take place at Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery after the service.

On October 28, 1927, Joe Barksdale came into the world in Anniston, Alabama. His parents were Brice and Sally Barksdale. On June 3, 1948, he tied the knot with Virginia Mae Powell. They stayed together as a married couple until Virginia’s passing in 2022. They named their children Bruce and Kathy and had two of them. Bruce wed Jacqueline Feldman, and the couple eventually had a son named Daniel. Kathy tied the knot with Chris Cornwell. Joe’s hobbies included barbecuing meat, fishing, and hunting. He also started training hunting dogs for field trials and was very successful at it; he won a number of awards and had one dog that was a national champion.

After living in Alabama for some time, the family ultimately settled in Ohio, where the father began working as a salesman for Alsco Manufacturing Company. He worked for the company for a total of 34 years, during which time he rose through the ranks to become the general manager of the Midwest division, relocated to the Des Moines branch, and oversaw the division’s rise to prominence as the most prosperous in the entire organization.

In 1975, he opened a food business on the grounds of the Iowa State Fairgrounds, and in 1993, he began offering chocolate chip cookies as an option for customers to purchase. At the fairgrounds, the cookies were extremely popular, and Joe quickly earned the nickname “Cookie Man” as a result. In 2019, the family decided to give the cookie business to the citizens of Iowa in order to ensure that the cookies would remain an integral part of the Iowa State Fair. You are welcome to share your condolences with the family at www.HamiltonsFuneralHome.com.