La Grande, Oregon
Wilma C. Easley, 95, of La Grande, died June 9 at her home. A memorial service will begin at 2 p.m. Thursday at the First Christian Church in La Grande. Private burial will be at the Hillcrest Cemetery.
Wilma was born Feb. 29, 1912, in Courtland, Kan., to Kenneth C. and Zelma Young Thomas. She was the oldest of nine children and grew up on a wheat farm in western Kansas. She attended school in Menlo, Kan., and graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1933. Wilma was a teacher in Menlo, Kan., and Cortez, Colo., until she married Carlos E. Easely on July 6, 1940. In 1943, they settled in La Grande.
She was secretary at La Grande High School in the early 1950s and taught Latin and math there until retiring in 1966.
She was a member of the La Grande First Christian Church, where she was a deaconess, a Sunday school teacher and the financial secretary. She was a lifetime member of the P.T.A. and a scout leader. She served on the elections board and was involved with proposing special budgets for schools and the city.
Wilma was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma teacher’s sorority, the Retired Educators, Chapter 1 of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the EOU Faculty Wives organization, a special friendship group of “42” players, as well as being a hospice volunteer and past member of the library board.
Wilma won La Grande-Union County Chamber of Commerce woman of the year.
Wilma and her husband, Carlos, helped many college students and families get a start in life over the years. Her interests included gardening, knitting, baking, reading, volunteering and dominoes, but most of all being a wife and a mother.
Survivors include her husband, Carlos of La Grande; children and their spouses, Elizabeth and Elburn Cooper and Carol and Richard Haddock, all of La Grande, and Tom and Mona Easley of Corvallis; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; siblings, Elvera Curless of Concord, Calif., Kenneth and Juanita Thomas of Clinton, Okla., June Claar of Wichita, Kan. and Beulah and Dalton Mimms of Hereford, Texas; sisters-in-law, Marge Bennett of Reno and Ruby Heflin of 29 Palms, Calif.; and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her siblings, Galen Thomas, Marvin Thomas, Doris Harman and Ruth Davis.
Memorials may be made to the First Christian Church Memorial Fund, Oregon State P.E.O. Sisterhood Charitable Trust, La Grande Public Library, or GRH Hospice in care of Daniels Chapel of the Valley, 1502 Seventh St., La Grande 97850. Please visit a shut-in in her memory.
La Grande Observer – Obituaries For The Week Ending June 16, 2007 Published: June 16, 2007
Transcribed by Dixie Ricker