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Show SIRS. VENA WILSON DIES AFTER HEART ATTACK; LAID TO REST IN IOWA Mrs. Vena Wilson, 83, retired Milford business woman, died at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Beaver County Hospital. She had suffered suffer-ed a heart attack Monday evening, and failed to rally. Mrs. Wilson had h a d a varied and interesting career. She was born in Ogdensburg, N. Y., on the St. Lawrence river, and had lived in Iowa, Texas, Washington, California, Cali-fornia, and Utah. She had been a " x I ' -; 1 . f i Mrs. Vena Wilson school teacher, house maid, saleslady, sales-lady, homesteader and bookkeeper. For 25 years, until she retired in 1947, she was office manager at Milford for Telluride Power Co. She learned "the three Rs" in a one-room school house on the Iowa prairie, where she lived in a sod house. She was graduated from Iowa State Teachers College, attended at-tended the University of Iowa, and University of Chicago. She was a teacher in the Midwest, but did not receive a high school diploma until she enrolled at Milford High school after retiring from her long period of service as bookeeper for Telluride, and earned the fraction of a credit in English which she had lacked. During, the 25 years she was employed em-ployed at Telluride, she assisted many Milford High school students with their English, Math, and Science Sci-ence assignments. She always enjoyed en-joyed associating with young folks, and often was asked to judge essay and speech contests in the Milford schools. In 1955 the Milford High school graduating class dedicated their yearbook to her. It was the year of the great Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Philadel-phia, 1875. General Grant was in the White House. On a rented farm near the now historic city of Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence river in upper New York state, George and Mary Hawley made their home. Here, on September 7, Lavena Maud was born, the fifth child in a family that eventually boasted ten children. Five years later, the family moved mov-ed to the new state of Iowa and her earliest recollection of her new home was a 12x14 trapper's shack that squatted on the banks of a big slough. With the other children, she dropped potatoes in the spring, herded cattle in the summer, snapped snap-ped corn in the fall, went to school in the winter. While still a mere child of 16, wearing her hair in long braids down her back, she secured her first teacher's certificate and taught her first term of school in a one-room country schoolhouse for $25 a month. For 16 years, she was in the teaching profession in the country and town schools, and for two years was head of the Normal Nor-mal department at Old Central College Col-lege at Pella, Iowa, an old Holland Dutch town. She spent one year with a brother broth-er near a quicksilver mine in4he Big Bend country of Texas, down by the Rio Grande. It was a strictly desert section of the state and she had to become accustomed to canned can-ned milk, as well as scorpions, rattle snakes, and tarantulas. The last three months she spent in camp, she was the only white woman there. In the fall of 1907, she and a younger sister went to the Pacific Northwest. While her sister was studying music in Seattle, Vena was teaching near the Navy Yard (Continued on Back Page) son's store, the old Golden Rule store run by Al Cline, the depot news stand and, finally, the Tellu-ride Tellu-ride Power office. For many years she was active in Ruth Chapter No. 6, Order of the Eastern Star, of which organization organi-zation she was a past worthy matron mat-ron and past secretary. In the Mil-ford Mil-ford Rebekah lodge she had served as past noble grand and was a past vice president of the Utah Rebekah Assembly. She also had been active ac-tive in the Milford Business and Professional Women's Club, was secretary of the church board of the Milford Methodist Church, and secretary-treasurer of the Women's Society for Christian Service. For many years she taught an adult Bible class at the Methodist church. Surviving Mrs. Wilson are three sisters, Sophronia Hawley, who came to Milford from California to care for her sister in her last ailing ail-ing years; Mrs. Fred Roewe, Laur- ens, Iowa; and Mrs. Esther Tuttle, I Remsen. Iowa. Funeral services were held Thursday at 12 o'clock in the Milford Mil-ford Methodist Church, with Frank Gift reading scripture from the Bible. Dr. Eugene Davie gave the history of her life, Mrs. Katharyne Whittaker gave two vocal numbers, num-bers, and the Eastern Star ladies presented their ritual. Mrs. Milton Pool furnished the prelude and postlude music. I Here's More About - Vena Wilson Continued from Page One at Bremerton and Wenatchee, on the plateau of the great Columbia river. The two sisters lived in Snoqualmie Falls and Preston, down the river from the falls, where Scandinavians, Danes, and Finns had settled. The lure of California called Vena to the Southland and she spent a winter in Los Angeles, later going to Santa Barbara. At this time, she gave up school teaching teach-ing and, by chance, became a bookkeeper book-keeper in a small cooperative but-ter-and-egg store. Later, she clerked in a variety store owned by Spanish speaking, home-grown California women who catered to the Mexican trade. During these snappy years, she was dreaming of being a homesteader home-steader in the West. So, when the opportunity presented itself, she landed in Beryl in the spring of 1915 on a ranch known throughout through-out the settlement as the Double-H ranch. She fell in love with Uie desert and also fell in love with a neighboring homesteader, W. J. Wilson. They were married in Milford Mil-ford at the Methodist Parsonage. In the fall of 1917, when the boys were going abroad for the First World War, the Wilsons moved to Milford. Here she clerked at the old C. C. Sloan drygoods store. After the death of Mr. Wilson, which occurred in 1922, she continued contin-ued her .work as a clerk in Jeffer- |