Mary Alice Stoddard Okey

OKEY, STODDARD, CABLE

Posted By: Marlene Skalberg (email)
Date: 2/15/2012 at 08:16:55

But few did not pause to sorrow when the very unexpected news came Sunday morning that Mrs. F. C. Okey had passed away at the Swedish Mission Hospital in Omaha, following an operation. Even those who had known Mrs. Okey most casually felt the irreparable loss to the community which her passing would bring, but to the great, great number the loss is poignantly personal. Only her intimate friends and family knew that she had gone to Omaha Thursday to submit to a very serious operation and so the shock was unusually great. Funeral services were held at the home Thursday morning at 10:00, conducted by Rev. E. S. Menoher, her pastor. Burial was made in the Walnut Grove Cemetery.
Alice Stoddard Okey was born in Villisca, September 11, 1878 where she spent her girlhood and received her early education. She is a graduate of the Villisca High School and also of Bellevue College. She graduated from the latter in the year 1900 and came the next fall to Corning to accept a position in the Corning Academy, where she taught for three years. On April the 7th, 1904, she was married to Frank Clifford Okey of Corning, where they made their home until her death, September 14, 1924, at Swedish Mission Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, following a serious surgical operation.
Mrs. Okey is survived by her stepmother, Mrs. C. N. Stoddard of Villisca, and five brothers, Eugene of Red Bluff, California, Harry of Los Angeles, California, Elmer of Hastings, Nebraska, Alfred of Chicago, Illinois, and Erling, Springfield, Illinois.
Perhaps in no pubic service will this splendid woman be missed more than in the church activities in which she has proven so willing and so efficient and to which her life seemed to be consecrated. Her membership was with the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her work was pre-eminently successful among the children where she was greatly loved. A larger field had recognized her ability in this time and she has of late years held the office of district secretary of children's work for the Foreign Missionary Society.
She was a member of the P.E.O. and the Woman's Club and was faithful at all times in the discharge of her duties wherever she was called to serve in the work of these organizations.
Adams County Free Press, September 20, 1924, page 1