Mary Jane Purgett Nelson 1925-2002

NELSON PURGETT FOX

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 12/17/2009 at 22:48:36

Sioux City Journal
21 April 2002

WHITING, Iowa -- Mary Jane (Purgett) Nelson, 77, of Whiting died Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Iowa.

Services will be 2 p.m. Monday at Wood Funeral Home in Sloan, Iowa, with the Rev. Richard Moore of Evangelical Covenant Church in Sloan officiating. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery in Sioux City. Visitation with family present will be noon until service time Monday at the funeral home.

Mrs. Nelson was born March 26, 1925, in Watseka, Ill., the daughter of Silas and Minnie (Fox) Purgett. She was raised in Loda, Ill., and graduated from high school in 1942. She and her brother rode a pony four miles to a country school. She attended business college in Chicago and worked as a personal secretary for Chanute Air Force Base.

She married Henry Giles in 1944 in Loda. She moved to the Luton, Iowa, area in 1952, living there until bad health put her in a nursing home. She had been a resident of Pleasant View Nursing Home in Whiting for the past seven years.

She was a Methodist and a former member of the Salix Methodist Church. She enjoyed family, gardening, sewing and playing the piano. She was loved and will be missed by many.

Survivors include a daughter and her husband, Rosemary and Lewis Swanger of Canton, N.C.; a son and his wife, James and Carla Giles of Oak Ridge, Tenn.; three grandchildren, David and his wife, Alicia Swanger, Amy and her husband, David VanZee, all of Canton, N.C., and Elizabeth Giles of Oak Ridge, Tenn.; a great-grandchild, Payton Van Zee; a brother and his wife, Charles W. and Dorothea Purgett of Sloan; two nephews and five nieces; 23 great-nieces and great-nephews; and 11 great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews.

She was preceded in death by a son, William Giles; and a niece, Cheryl Purgett.

Pallbearers will be Brandon Purgett, Derek Bollin, Ryan Walker, William Patrick Walker, Thomas Michael and Dennis Bogenrief.