[ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

Sarah Marie Giles, 19 May 1923 - 13 Dec 2017

GILES, SMITH, GARRISON, BYERS, CROSBY

Posted By: Sandy Ficken (email)
Date: 3/11/2018 at 17:36:46

Sarah Marie Giles, 94, formerly of Marengo and Williamsburg in Iowa County, died Tuesday evening, Dec. 13, 2017, at Royalton Manor Care Facility, St. Joseph, Mich., where she had moved last March.

Her cremated remains will be returned to Iowa from Michigan when the weather warms in the spring and she will be interred in Calvary Cemetery beside her son-in-law, Thomas Crosby. At that time a graveside service and memorial luncheon will commemorate her life and going home to her Lord.

Sarah Marie Giles was born May 19, 1923, in Grandfield, Okla., the daughter of Cecil and Irene (Garrison) Smith. Her father was a share cropper and typical of those Dust Bowl, Great Depression times, struggled to support Marie and her siblings. He succumbed to an infection when she was 11 years old.

In a presentation to the Kiwanis Club, she spoke of her experiences, sharing anecdotes illustrating the the realities of living in that time and location prior to the death of her father. She told how she and her siblings were sent out immediately after an Oklahoma dust storm to look for their chickens. They could be found as mounds in the dust. The children would reach into the mounds, pull out the chickens before they suffocated, shake off the dust and set them down, watching them scurry away, complaining.

Her little sister, Cora, was too small for that chore but Mom remembered her playing on the floor of the house, piling the dust up over her little feet. There was the year they went into the winter with only three barrels of provisions given by the government, a bitter concession of pride for survival; one of black-eyed peas, one of pinto beans and one of flour. And there was the very sad time her mother turned their little Jersey milk cow out to fend for herself as they had nothing to feed her. Survival was one thing but attachment to and respect for a creature who had nurtured them with her milk and followed them around like a pet simply wouldn’t allow them to butcher her. Following her father’s death, relatives from Texas came and took them back with them. They thanked God they had family who were willing and able to come to their assistance as many folks in those days had no help of any kind. Family was everything to her then and throughout all ensuing years.

Marie not only survived those times of extreme hardship but rose above them and other difficult times to become a beautiful, gracious, loving Christian woman with a lively spirit of fun. Her life circumstances were nomadic and she envied her friends who had lived all their lives in the same general location, with lifelong friends and school and church connections. However frequently life left her with dangling roots she worked hard to make a welcoming home for her family and she drew friends to herself with seeming ease and kept bonds to previous friends intact. Her time in Iowa County was the longest she had ever stayed in one place and it allowed her to sink those roots.

She was very creative. She loved painting, crafting, decorating and had a rare gift for making whoever she was with, adults or children, feel very special. She was a businesswoman, a beautician with her own shop in Danville, before moving to Marengo following the death of her husband, Raymond Giles, in 1985.

She found Christian fellowship at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Williamsburg. She also spent many happy hours with her friends playing bridge and loved hosting beautiful occasions for and with her friends.

Marie is survived by a sister, Cora Byers, Oklahoma City; brother, Jerry Smith, Lakeside, Calif.; son, Grover Skip Giles, Oceanside, Calif.; daughter, Anita Crosby, St. Joseph, Mich., along with many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews all over America.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Raymond “Red” Giles; brother, Jessie, at Iwo Jima in World War II; brother, “Bud” and sisters, Juanita, Pauline and Wanda.

The Journal Tribune, 17 Jan 2018, pg 5


 

Iowa Obituaries maintained by Steve Williams.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen

[ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]