Obituary:Iowa City Sulo W. Wiitala, 92, of Iowa City died Thursday, August 4, 2011, at Windmill Manor in Coralville, following a brief illness. Funeral Services will be held at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, August 9 at Zion Lutheran Church in Iowa City. Visitation will be held from 12:00 pm – until service time at the church. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Michigan Technological University or to Zion Lutheran Church. Burial will be held at Lakeview Cemetery in Calumet, Michigan. Sulo was born to Joseph and Senja (Ojala) Wiitala in Copper City, MI on August 13, 1918. The family moved to Gay, MI, then to Mountain Iron, MN from where they returned to Finland in 1921 and where a daughter Sylvia was born. The family returned to the USA in 1923 and after a brief stay in Detroit, setttled in Gay, MI. Sulo attended the local schools there, graduating from Lake Linden - Hubbell High School in 1936 and from the Michigan College of Mining & Technology (now Michigan Technological University) in 1940 with a B.S. degree (with honors) in civil engineering. On October 25, 1942, Sulo married Leone Winquist in Calumet, MI. He joined the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey as a junior engineer in Indianapolis, Indiana in October of 1940. This association with the USGS continued for 38 years with several interruptions: service in the US Navy 1945 – 1946, employment as an instructor in engineering drawing at the University of Illinois, Navy Pier Branch, Chicago from 1946 – 1947, and employment as a hydraulic engineer for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District from 1947 – 1948. He returned to the Michigan District, USGS, in October 1948 as engineer in charge of the Upper Peninsula sub-district office in Houghton, MI. In November of 1950, Sulo was shot by a Detroit hunter in a deer hunting accident and spent the next four months in a Calumet hospital. In June of 1951, he transferred to the district office in Lansing, MI, where the last interruption in his USGS career occurred. He spent the summer of 1956 in Bagdad, Iraq employed by the Harza Engineering Company of Chicago in the establishment of a Hydrologic Survey of Iraq. He departed Iraq in October of 1956, shortly before the assassination of the Shah of Iraq and the formation of a leftist government in the country. He returned to the Michigan district USGS where he was employed until transferring to the Iowa district as district engineer/chief in May 1965. Sulo retired from Federal service in December of 1978 and then for the next 25 years worked part-time as a hydrologist for Shive-Hattery Engineers in their Iowa City office. During this time, he spent about two weeks in Nigeria, in 1981, as part of an investigation into the possibility of a third annual crop season for the country. Sulo was a life-long member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, serving as a member and president of the Lansing-Jackson Section and as a member of the Iowa Section of ASCE. He was also a member and president of the Iowa City Engineers Club, member and president of the Iowa Engineering Society, member of the American Water Resources Association, and member and president of Zion Lutheran Church in Iowa City. Survivors include his wife Leone, a daughter Susan Vasquez (Lee) and their sons Gabriel and Marcus, all of Coralville, a sister Sylvia Baugh of Milford, MI, brother-in-law Vernon Winquist (Dolores) of Lavonia, MI, two nephews Glenn Baugh (Jan) of Yuma, AZ and Keith Winquist of Canton, MI, two nieces Gayle Baugh of Pensacola, FL and Nancy Hughes (Dan) of Lavonia, MI. Sulo was preceded in death by his parents, a brother Glen Hallfast, a nephew Gregory Hallfast, mother-in-law Anna Winquist, brothers-in-law: Chester Winquist and James Winquist; and a sister-in-law Eleanor Younker. Online condolences and memories may be left for the family at www.lensingfuneral.com under obituaries. A graveside service will be held at 4 PM on Thursday at the Lake View Cemetery, Section 76, in Calumet. The Peterson Funeral Home in Calumet is assisting locally.
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