June Alice (Wright) Riker 1889 - 1948

RIKER, WRIGHT, GILCHRIST, SWARTZ, CARLSON

Posted By: Linda H. Meyers (email)
Date: 8/2/2009 at 18:31:49

RITES HELD FOR MRS. A. RIKER

Services Held Monday Afternoon April 12, at the Luther Methodist Church

Passed Away at Home North of Luther Friday, April 9 - 58 Years Old

LUTHER - With many sorrowing relatives and friends present last rites were held Monday afternoon, April 12, for the late Mrs. Anthony Riker. She passed away at the Riker country home north of Luther Friday evening, April 9, at the age of 58 years, 7 months and 20 days. The Rev. J. Neal Clemmer conducted the prayer service at the home at 2 o'clock and the rites which followed at 2:30 from the Luther Methodist church.

A quartette accompanied by Mrs. Charles McVay at the piano, sang "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and "God's Tomorrow." The singers were Mrs. Gerald Patterson, Mrs. LeRoy Sigmund, Eldon Rosene and LeRoy Sigmund. In charge of the floral pieces sent in token of respect to the deceased's memory and in sympathy to the bereaved were Mrs. Walter DeWitt and Mrs. Joe Romedahl.

Interment was made in the family lot in Squire Boone cemetery.

Obituary

June Alice Riker, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. J. W. Wright, was born in Van Meter October 19, 1889. She was educated in the public schools of Iowa, and after graduating from the high school at Defiance she was ambitious for more schooling and higher learning. She attended Simpson College, Methodist school at Indianola, for one year and then transfered to Iowa State Teachers college at Cedar Falls, where she was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She enjoyed young people, loved to be with them, so for a number of years she found joy and happiess in teaching in the rural and public schools. She served faithfully and well in the schools of Nashua and Malvern and Perry.

June was raised in a minister's family and in a parsonage home. She was in constant contact with work of the Sunday school and church. She heard the needs of the world discussed by visiting pastors and missionaries as they gathered around the dining room table in the parsonage. So deeply concerned was she that it is not surprising that at an early age she developed a keen interest in missions. After serving in the public schools for a few years she felt that she was needed in a larger field of service and decided to use her ability in the work of Home Missions. She was assigned as a teacher to Mather Academy, Camden, South Carolina, a colored school of the Methodist church for boys and girls. In 1921 she became a field secretary and visited many churches throughout the United States, presenting the needs of Home and Foreign Missions.

Married in 1923

She was united in marriage to Stanton Anthony Riker, in the year 1923, by her father, in the home of her parents, who were then residing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After her marriage she came to live on the Rikerage, a farm north of LUther, where she passed away Friday evening.

To this union was born one daughter, Ada May, who died at birth. Her life was a life of servince, a life of giving and doing. This was typified by the fact that not being given a family of her own to raise, nurture and love, she and her good husband took into their home two young boys, brothers, who they have raised as their own. To these boys she proved herself a devoted and remarkable mother. She loved her home, her boys, and her husband, with a deep and lasting devotion. She was faithful and true. Her last concern was for her husband who has been ill for nearly a year.

She leaves to mourn her death, her devoted husband, the two sones, John of Boone and Quentin of Louisville, KY., one grandson, one granddaughter, a brother, Alvin Wright of Cody, Wyoming, and three sisters, Mrs. George Gilchrist of Stratford, Mrs. Mark Swartz of Silver City, and Mrs. Anita Carlson of Rockwell City, together with many other relatives and a wide circle of friends.

---from the Madrid Register-News Apr. 15, 1948