Leonia May Maze Anderson
Aug. 13, 1912-Sept. 12, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:37 AM PDT
Nyssa
Our beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, Leonia May Maze Anderson, passed into Eternity to be with her Lord and Savior on Sept. 13, 2009.
Leonia was born in a sod house in Custer County, Neb., on Aug. 13, 1912, to Wesley Ernest Maze and Effie Frances Hanley Maze. She was the only daughter and had two brothers, Ralph Maze and Orville Maze, both of whom predeceased her.
She was educated in Nebraska and graduated from Nebraska State Teachers College at Kearney in 1933 during the Great Depression. Her father was a farmer and due to the hard time, she was his hired help. As a young girl, she learned to drive a buck rake behind a team of horses while her father cut the hay with another team.
She married Wilbur Harley Anderson on April 10, 1937, in Penrose, Wyo. To this union were born four sons and three daughters. Mrs. Anderson taught in Nebraska, Wyoming and then in Oregon when the couple moved their family to Nyssa to be near her parents. She was a teacher in the Ontario school system for 20-plus years, and some of her proudest moments in later years were when former students (and then their children) would come up to her and say “I’m so-and-so, you had me in the fourth grade.”
After she retired from teaching, she and Wilbur spent many, many happy years fishing and traveling in their travel trailer throughout the Northwest; also “snow birding” to Arizona. She enjoyed playing cards, crossword puzzles and other games, knitting and crafts. She stayed very active in her later years until she broke her pelvis in a fall. After that, she and Wilbur moved into foster care at the Kent and Debbie Price home on Columbia Avenue in Nyssa. She loved her care-givers, and her survivors are all sincerely grateful for the love and devotion Debbie and Debby showered on her.
Mrs. Anderson is survived by her loving husband of 72 years, Wilbur; by her beloved sister-in-law, Alma Maze, of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and also by her children and their spouses: Lyle (Gail) Anderson, of Lebanon, Mo.; Anita (James) Shore, of Caldwell, Idaho; Aleta (Stephen) Fonda, of Florence, Ore.; Charles (Shirley) of Palm Desert, Calif.; Orville (Larna) Anderson, of Nyssa; and Cheryl (Bob) Stock, of Reno, Nev. Her son, Leon, passed away June 1, 1950. She is also survived by 17 grandchildren; 37 great-grandchildren; two great- great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews.
We all miss her and cherish our precious memories of her and of a life well lived.
The viewing will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009, at Lienkaemper Chapel in Nyssa, Ore. Graveside services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18, 2009, at Hilltop Cemetery, Nyssa, Ore.
