EVERIST, Mary Mabel Faye (GIFFORD)

GIFFORD, EVERIST, ROWEN, HARDER, CROWDER, COOPER, STEWART, HICKS, SHAFFER

Posted By: Sharon R. Becker (email)
Date: 11/24/2017 at 01:20:04

Obituary ~ Mary Mabel Faye (Gifford) Everist
March 17, 1903 ~ June 20, 1999

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Sunday June 20, 1999

Mrs. Roy (Mary M.) Everist, 96, 309 E. Francis, La Habra, Calif., formerly of Mason City, died April 2, 1999, in Whittier, Calif.

Funeral services were held Tuesday, April 6, in Anaheim United Methodist Church, with the Rev. Shannon Conklin Miller, the Rev. Dr. Robert Shepard and the Rev. Mary Hibbard officiating. Burial was in Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego.

A memorial fund was established in her memory at the Anaheim United Methodist Church.

Mary Mabel Faye Gifford, daughter of the Rev. Charles Tabor and Harriett Direxa (Rowen) Gifford, was born March 17, 1903, in Gifford. Her father, who operated Gifford General Store and pastored the Gifford Methodist Church, died in 1911. In 1913 Mary moved with her family to Marshalltown, where she attended the Marshalltown schools and graduated from Marshalltown Business College. She worked as a secretary and bookkeeper for several local merchants.

On July 15, 1925, Mary married Sidney LeRoy (Roy) Everist, and they moved to Eldora, where they operated the Everist Oil Company until 1927, when they moved to Marshalltown to operate Roy's father's service station. On July 4, 1928, they moved to Mason City, where they operated several different businesses until September of 1950, when they moved to Ocean Beach, Calif. In 1962 she completed her high school education. Roy died May 12, 1958. Mary moved to Anaheim in 1968 and in 1994 she moved to her daughter Billie's home in La Habra.

Mary was a member of Wesley United Methodist Church, Mason City, and of Point Loma Methodist Church in San Diego from 1950 to 1968. She became a member of Anaheim United Methodist Church on Sept. 22, 1968. She was Women's District treasurer for many years. She was a member of Morning Squares. She made many items for the church bazaar. She was also a member of Anaheim Senior Citizens Center and Partners in Chime. She made many Christmas stockings for family members as well as friends. She operated a computer and sent e-mail to all her children and other family members.

Mary had several hospitalizations beginning November 1998 and had a stroke on Jan. 19, 1999. On January 21, she entered Berryman Health East Whittier, where she passed away April 2.

Happy to have shared Mary's life are her daughters, Lois Everist Harder, Sioux Falls, S.D., and Wilmyth (Billie) Crowder, La Habra; her three sons and their spouses, Kempton and Margaret Everist, LaGrange, Calif., the Rev. Carroll and Dixie Everist, Mulvane, Kan., and the Rev. Burton and Norma Everist, East Dubuque, Ill.; 14 grandchildren; 27 great-grandchildren; and 10 great-great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Roy; an infant daughter, Harriet Winona Everist; three grandsons, Sidney LeRoy Everist, Guy Carroll Everist, and Emmett Kenneth Crowder Jr.; two great-granddaughters, Jennifer Joy Cooper and Don and Dee Harder's baby girl; three sisters, Rhoda Stewart, Vivian Hicks and Beattrice Shaffer; and two brothers, Charles Gifford and Jasper Luverne Gifford.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2017