George Foreman was Houston through and through. He grew up the fifth of seven children raised by a single mom in Fifth Ward and went on to become the city’s only heavyweight boxing world champion. When he was done boxing — for both his early retirement and then final retirement after an historic comeback that saw him regain the heavyweight title at 45 years old — he settled back in Houston, opening the George Foreman Youth and Community Center in the Aldine area and opening his own church not far away from there, all while making a mint with his grills.

Foreman was laid to rest at Sioux City’s Logan Park Cemetery without any fanfare, weeks after he died. The family returned to the cemetery a year later to make the burial decision public, including unveiling a tombstone that features the famous photo of Foreman waving the American flag after winning Olympic boxing gold in 1968.

The family says Foreman told them in the 1980s that he had been to Sioux City and felt a sense of peace looking at the nearby Loess Hills.

The burial plot picked out by the Foreman family has a view of those hills their father spoke of so fondly.

“Once I got here, it all started making sense,” George Foreman V said. “It was very picturesque, he loved beautiful landscapes. It was, ‘Oh, this is real beauty.’’

It was that sight of the rising hills among the flat plains near the Missouri River that convinced the family that their father’s unusual request was serious. Natalie Foreman-Wynn made the trip to Sioux City to check out possible burial locations after her father’s funeral in Houston. She was so struck by the view, she immediately called her brother George IV.

“I was like, ‘These hills.’ He said, ‘Loess Hills! He always said that,’” Natalie said. “I just stopped and looked at it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so beautiful.’”

She also said it was a bit of a relief to go someplace where everyone didn’t know their father and to get away from the public spotlight while trying to grieve their father’s death.

“As crazy and chaotic as it was in Houston for us to plan services there, when we came here, it was like a relief,” Natalie said. “It was none of the chaos, it was just beautiful and peaceful and just what dad would have wanted it to be.”