Bertha Mae “Peggy” Melchior, 71 of Halfway, died July 25, 2005, at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center surrounded by her family.
A celebration of Peggy’s life will be scheduled later.
Peggy was born and raised at San Diego. In 1950, while working at Rohr making airplane parts, Peggy met and later married Donald Johnson. They had one daughter, Sherry. That marriage ended in divorce.
A few years later, she married James Robert Melchior. They had three children, Jim, Dorothy and Gary. When Jim’s tour of duty in the Navy was up, they returned to his home state of Colorado.
After a divorce in the mid 1960s, Peggy and her four children moved to San Diego to be closer to her family. In 1969, she had another daughter, Pamela.
In 1973, she traveled to Richland to visit friends and fell in love with the area. She immediately went home to San Diego, packed her things and moved with her children to Richland. They lived at Richland for a few years before they moved to Halfway. Peggy loved Halfway and never left.
She enjoyed gardening, farming, ceramics, teaching and loving her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She loved and lived for browsing yard sales and Jacob’s Dream. Her family and friends hope very much that heaven has a Jacob’s Dream. She also had an extensive collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia.
Survivors include her brother and his wife, Gene and Rose Lampert; children, Sherry Darlene and her husband, Clark Downing, James Eugene and his wife, Lynne Melchior, Dorothy Pauline and Herman Thompson, and Pamela Dawn and Jason Miller; many grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and nieces, nephews and cousins.
She was preceded in death by her mother, Pauline Lampert, who died in 2001; her father, Jesse James Lampert, who died in 1969; a son, Gary Melchior, who died in 1981; a grandson, Gary Roy Thompson, who died in 1980; and her ex-husband, James Robert Melchior, who died in 1996.
Peggy was deeply loved and will be missed by many, most especially by her grandchildren and great- grandchildren.
Memorial contributions may be made to the charity of one’s choice through Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home, P.O. Box 543, Halfway, OR 97834.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, August 5, 2005
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor