{"id":614247,"date":"2026-04-18T03:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/614247\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:20:10","slug":"why-is-boxing-legend-george-foreman-buried-in-iowa-and-not-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/614247\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is boxing legend George Foreman buried in Iowa and not Houston?"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Foreman was Houston through and through<\/a>. He grew up the fifth of seven children raised by a single mom in Fifth Ward and went on to become the city\u2019s only heavyweight boxing world champion. When he was done boxing \u2014 for both his early retirement and then final retirement after an historic comeback that saw him regain the heavyweight title at 45 years old \u2014 he settled back in Houston, opening the George Foreman Youth and Community Center in the Aldine area and opening his own church<\/a> not far away from there, all while making a mint with his grills<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Foreman was laid to rest at Sioux City\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The burial plot picked out by the Foreman family has a view of those hills their father spoke of so fondly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I got here, it all started making sense,\u201d George Foreman V said. \u201cIt was very picturesque, he loved beautiful landscapes. It was, \u2018Oh, this is real beauty.\u2019’<\/p>\n

It was that sight of the rising hills among the flat plains near the Missouri River that convinced the family that their father\u2019s 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<\/a>. She was so struck by the view, she immediately called her brother George IV.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, ‘These hills.’ He said, ‘Loess Hills! He always said that,’\u201d Natalie said. \u201cI just stopped and looked at it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it\u2019s so beautiful.’\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said it was a bit of a relief to go someplace where everyone didn\u2019t know their father and to get away from the public spotlight while trying to grieve their father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs crazy and chaotic as it was in Houston for us to plan services there, when we came here, it was like a relief,\u201d Natalie said. \u201cIt was none of the chaos, it was just beautiful and peaceful and just what dad would have wanted it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Foreman was Houston through and through. He grew up the fifth of seven children raised by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-614247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}