Wilma Wilson, 106, passed away December 10, 2023, at the Arbors, Hutchinson, KS. She was born June 24, 1917, to William C. and Alice M. Herren, in their farm home between Nickerson and Hutchinson, Kansas.

Wilma graduated from Reno Community High School, Nickerson, in 1934, and married Eugene Sturgeon of Zenith, KS, February 5, 1937. He passed away June 19, 1986.

Living on a farm, Wilma worked hard growing up and later as a wife and was a talented baker, and seamstress. For 22 years she cooked and ran the school lunch program at Nickerson Grade School. Wilma's cinnamon rolls and deviled eggs were legendary. She was a core partner in their hog operation, and last showed at the state fair in 2006 at 89. After retirement, Wilma volunteered at the Food Bank for twenty years, and enjoyed church and community activities and traveling.

Wilma was a member of the Nickerson First Christian Church and lastly Nickerson United Methodist Church.

Wilma married R. Bruce Wilson on October 28, 1990, and moved to Hutchinson from the farm in 1996. They had over twenty-three great years of marriage together.

The Sturgeon and Wilson families had blended over the years in many ways with their children attending high school and college at the same times as well as Bruce, Edith (Bruce's first wife), and Wilma all attending the same high school together, the same church for a number of years, and contributing to the same community with agricultural, 4-H and personal activities.

Survivors include: daughters, Judy Wiesenthal of El Paso, TX, and Elaine Cloyd (John Mitchell) of Hutchinson; stepsons, Clarence Wilson of Lawrence, KS, and Kenneth (Shirley) Wilson of Hutchinson, KS; stepdaughter, Rosanne Wilson of Topeka, KS; grandchildren, Brian (McKenzie) Cloyd of Baldwin, KS, Carl Wiesenthal of El Paso, TX, Mark (Rachel) Wiesenthal of  Meadow, TX; step-grandchildren; Tammy (Sean) Moore of Hutchinson, Robert (Ann) Wilson of Salem, SC, Gerald (Kendra) Wilson of Fairplay, CO, Jayme (Aaron) Bennett of Tonganoxie, KS, Darin and James Wilson of Hutchinson, and Matthew (Amy) Wilson of Miami, OK; great-grandchildren; Lowen and Palmer Cloyd, Amanda and Serina Wiesenthal, Cole and Wyatt Bennett, Calub and Ashlee Wilson, Aiden and Jordan Wilson; and great-great-grandchildren; Johann and Emil Wiesenthal.

Wilma was preceded in death by:  husbands, Eugene Sturgeon and Bruce Wilson; son, Dale Sturgeon; son-in-law, Alvin Wiesenthal; grandsons, Roy Lee and Rex Wiesenthal; stepdaughter, Patricia Wilson;  and stepsister, Mary Alice Hobbs Ditgen.

The Celebration of Life will be 11:00 a.m. Saturday, December 16, 2023, at Elliott Mortuary Chapel, with nephew Roger Herren and Pastor Mercy Langat presiding. Burial will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery. Friends may call from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, with family to receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at Elliott Mortuary.

Click here to view Wilma's Celebration of Life Service

Memorials may be made to the Reno County Food Bank, Nickerson United Methodist Church, or Reno County Crime Stoppers, in care of Elliott Mortuary, 1219 N. Main, Hutchinson, KS 67501. Please visit www.elliottmortuary.com to leave a personal condolence for Wilma's family.

With permission from Wilma's family, we are sharing her lifestory.

Wilma Alice (Herren) Sturgeon Wilson was born over 106 years ago on June 24, 1917, in a farmhouse southwest of Nickerson, by Salt Creek just off Herren Road, to William Clinton and Alice Marian Herren. She had two older brothers Wayne and Leonard. She lived there until 1937. The following is her story in her own words.

Life was slower, but not easier, in the early 1900s. Life was hard and even we children worked. There was livestock to feed and later butcher, chickens to tend, produce to grow and can, and land to work. Many years brought drought, insects, and dust storms. Tractors were rare and we tilled our land with a horse-drawn plow until the late twenties. One of the most vivid farm-related memories is of threshing wheat. Cutting the wheat and putting up the straw was a family activity on the farm. We even cooked the meals during harvest in an outside kitchen for the family and the extra harvest workers. My mom would set me in the straw stacks when I was small while she worked so she could keep an eye on me. At other times she would leave me on the bed surrounded by pillows while she worked outside.

I had a very enjoyable childhood. On a farm you have so many things to learn. We always had a pet dog and kittens. One of my jobs was to tend the chickens. I loved to sit in the brooder house and let the baby chicks walk up on me and go to sleep. Of course, I couldn't move until they woke up. I liked playing with the baby geese. I would sit still and let them pull at my clothes, sometimes tearing my dress off. Mom was not happy. I also helped my mother can enough produce to last the entire winter. We even had canned meat which was butchered at home. It was the most wonderful meat I had ever tasted.

When we needed disciplined, mom or dad would send us to cut our own willow stick for them to use so we could think about what we had done during the walk. My brother Leonard and I were always lifelong buddies, and he would get me in trouble ever once in a while. One particular memory was when my dad sharpened the axe and told us not to touch it. Of course, we ran right to it. Somehow, I got in the way when Leonard threw it. It only nicked my head, but I ran to the house with blood everywhere and my dress cut all the way down. I'm sure that was a willow stick event.

Salt Creek ran through our pasture, and I really liked playing in the water. My brothers threw me off the bridge into the water to teach me to swim. As I got older, we would catch fish with a pitchfork. The creek would flood almost every year. What a mess, but fun crossing in the flood water. We were always fixing fence so the cows and horses would not get out.

We had a beautiful pasture with bluffs, which were so much fun to play on, and learn to climb as we got older. When we were young, people from Hutchinson would like to have picnics in our pasture, known as the Bluffs. Leonard and I would hold hands and go ask people for fifty cents to have picnics. Most would pay.

We got together often with my mother's brothers and sisters and all the cousins. In the summer, we would all go to the Arkansas River, and everyone would go swimming – no bikinis – and then have picnic dinners. In the winter, we would get together at different homes for big dinners. All of us cousins (about 18) would have a wonderful time playing – corn cob fights, croquet, playing house, or rolling down the hill in a tire.

In the fall we would take the day off and attend the Kansas State Fair. My mother would pack a huge lunch and we would go from early morning until time for evening chores. Riding the "Old Mill," which opened in 1915, was the highlight of the day. At age 90, I rode the Old Mill once more with my daughter Elaine. It brought back special memories of the time I rode as a child and teen-ager.

I started to school at 6, walking 1 ½ miles across the fields to and from. Mostly, we had neighborhood kids to walk home with, which was fun. Sometimes in the winter when it snowed, my brothers would each take my hands and drag me through the snow. Grandma lived halfway to school so at times I would run away from my brothers to Grandma's, and they would have to come get me. Sometimes we got to ride our big draft horse and send it back home when we got to school. The best part of snowy school days were the snow forts and snowball fights. I remember pelting an occasional passing car with snowballs, which was the most fun of all.

School was fun and educational. I was the only one in my class the first year, so the teacher put me in the third grade with 5 other girls. We had great fun, and I learned a lot. It was a one-room school, with students, individual desks with ink wells, and a stove. We used straight pens, and dipped them into the ink, and had penmanship practice 2-3 times per week. Each class would go to the front of the room and sit on a long bench, called the citation bench and we would learn from each other. We carried our lunches mostly in syrup buckets, but when I was in 7th or 8th grade, my parents purchased me a lunch bucket, which was a big deal.

We played basketball on an outside court, and had spring track meets, spelling bees, and syphering matches. We had very nice Christmas programs, even 3 act plays, and the teacher would make us very pretty crepe paper dresses with tinsel on them.

I graduated from grade school in 1930, in an all-Reno County graduation at Convention Hall. Afterwards, we all marched two blocks down West A to a big building where we all had lunch upstairs.

I started high school in the fall of 1930, at Reno Community High School in Nickerson, and drove to school in a Model A Ford with my two brothers. The depression hit hard, and money was very scarce, however we found life fun and exciting. There were forty-three in our class. I was really scared because I did not know anyone. There were three buildings, but I soon learned where to go. Once I had to go upstairs and all the doors were shut, but luck was with me and I chose the right one, and relieved to see my teacher, Jud Detter. The class was agriculture. Not many girls signed up for that class, but it came naturally to me.

I graduated in 1934 and went back to the farm. My brother Leonard went into the cattle business with Eugene (Gene) Sturgeon, who was from Zenith. February 5, 1937, Gene and I were married by a pastor in Zenith. He was more nervous than we were because it was his first wedding!

Gene and I lived in an apartment in Hutchinson, then in Careyville, then moved to a brand-new house on Avenue B in Hutchinson. Gene had Sturgeon Motor Company and traded cars. However, the "farming bug" bit Gene, and we moved to a basement house in rural Nickerson. It was a shock moving from my brand-new house to that basement house with no running water, no indoor bathroom, and the house leaked like a sieve every time it rained. It was that way for the entire 20 years we lived there.

Despite the hardships, there were many blessings also and we built our family over the next 3 decades, Dale, Judy, and Elaine. A very busy life became even busier.

Every day was hectic for a young farm wife. I was a 4-H food leader and had cooking classes in that little basement house. Gene and I also raised chickens and every morning I would dress 5-7 chickens and have them to the restaurant by 7am.

We had time for fun though. As young married couples, we rode motorcycles with Leonard and Laverne, and other friends, and of course the girls all wore dresses. Gene and I had just gotten an Indian motorcycle and were riding on South Main in Hutchinson when a train started coming across the street from a warehouse. Gene told me to jump off the back, which I did in a dress, while it was still moving at a good pace, and he was able to lay that motorcycle down before he hit the train.

Dale took hogs in 4-H and the family soon started a hog operation. I have done everything to a hog that's known to do. One time when Gene was gone, I knew a sow needed help delivering in litter. I pulled the whole litter by myself. Showing pigs became a family project over the years, and Gene and I traveled to national shows and did very well. In 2006, at 89, I showed pigs with Judy and Elaine for Greg Thompson for the last time at the Kansas State Fair.

By the 1960's life got better, although there was always a lot of work to do. Doing much of the work ourselves, Gene and I built a house on the edge of Nickerson an continued a successful hog operation. I also cooked at the Nickerson Grad School for 22 years. We made everything from scratch during those years. I loved seeing the students every day and giving them something "extra" on several occasions. I became famous for my homemade cinnamon rolls, and I have made thousands throughout the years for family and friends.

I became a good seamstress and made almost everything that the family wore. In the early days, when we bought chicken feed, I always bought four sacks just alike so I would have enough material to make whatever I wanted. I made the girls' prom dresses and remade Elaine's prom dress for her wedding with a long trailing veil. I also made my dress for that wedding too – I loved it so much that I told my family to just bury me in that dress if it still fit! By the way, the prom and wedding dresses were not made from feed sacks.

As my children grew older, I realized that I wanted them to have something that I had not had as a child – a church home and family. I picked the Christian Church in Nickerson and my three children, and I were all baptized together.

Gene got sick in the early 1980s, I retired from school, and we sold the farm and built a home in Nickerson. He passed in 1986. During the following 5 years, I did some traveling, including a trip to Germany, helped with activities in the church kitchen, and did some work for my daughter Elaine in her office.

Bruce Wilson and I were in the same class in high school and had been lifetime friends but never dated. When his high school sweetheart, and wife, Edith. passed away, our friendship grew. Our sons had been college roommates, and our youngest daughters were good friends. Bruce would find excuses to stop by because he could not cook at all, and I would fix something for him. On October 28, 1990, we were married at the Christian Church in Nickerson, and that remained our church home until circumstances brought us to the Nickerson Methodist Church. That friendship that began in 1930, flourished for 98 years, and our marriage lasted for almost 24 years. We lived out on Bruce's farm before moving to Hutchinson in 1996.

I always enjoyed my grandchildren. Even though Judy's family traveled with the military, her boys Rex, Carl, and Mark took turns coming to Kansas during the summers to spend time on the farm, and the entire family would come for visits and special events. Judy's youngest, Roy Lee passed at age 10 while they were on assignment in Germany, so he did not get to spend the summer. However, when he did come to the farm on visits, he would always find a frog and put it in his pocket and carry it around and even sit with it in his pocket in the house. How it stayed alive I will never know! I was so glad to have that time with them. I watched Brian, Elaine's son, often, when he was young, because they lived close, and later had the opportunity to help him with his 4-H Foods projects, attend his music and sporting events, make costumes for Buhler Singers for their first national contest, and made burlap and lace table coverings for his wedding at age 96. Spending time with my great grandchildren, Amanda, and Serina and their mother Sigi for several days 2017, while living in Wesley Towers, was such a blessing since they grew up in Germany, and I will never forget that time together.

The last 9 years have been a new adventure on my own. After Bruce passed, I moved to Wesley Towers to enjoy the activities and the comradery of the residents. During COVID, I moved to Waldron Place to complete my life. I can truly say my life has been blessed by my family, my extended family, my community and my church. I wouldn't change it in any way.