Opha Winnora THOMPSON

THOMPSON, NELSON

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 12/29/2006 at 18:58:58

Opha W. Thompson, 98, died February 12, 2006 at the I.O.O.F. Home in Mason City. Services were held Feb. 14 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Belmond with Pastor Lowell Halvorson officiating. Burial was in the Belmond Cemetery.

Opha Winnora, the daughter of Adolph and Charlotte (Nelson) Thompson, was born August 29, 1907 on a farm near Belmond. She was baptized at St. Olaf Lutheran Church near Belmond and reaffirmed her faith at Trinity Lutheran Church in Belmond in 1920. She graduated from Belmond High School in 1924 and worked at the State Bank of Belmond until 1930. She furthered her education at Colburn Business College in Minneapolis and then took a secretarial job for the superintendent of schools in Owatonna, MN. In 1937 she moved to Washington, D.C. where she was employed by the U.S. Dept. of Labor. In 1942 she moved to Kansas City for a job with the Dept. of Agriculture. In 1944 Opha joined the American Red Cross and served in Australia and the Philippines. She was assigned to U.S. military hospitals and was one of the first American women to enter Japan after WWII. She worked in the 42nd General Hospital in Yokohama where 18,000 prisoners of ware were treated before being sent home. Following the war she lived in San Francisco, returning to Belmond to care for her parents and sister in 1957. She was employed at Steele Memorial Clinic until retirement. Opha was active at Trinity Lutheran and was a member of the Sons of Norway.

She was preceded in death by her father in 1958, mother in 1968, and sister Shirley Nelson in 1986. She is survived by numerous cousins.

14 February 2006
©Belmond Independent 2006