- Date Of Birth: April 10, 1921
- Date Of Death: March 14, 2017
- State: Missouri
Mary Ethel Ness of Cook Station, MO passed from this earth into heaven on Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at the St. James Living Center in St. James, MO.
Mary was born April 10, 1921 in Crawford County Missouri to the union of James William Schoonover and Ethel Naomi Cotton. She Married Wayne Roy Ness September 6, 1937 in Steelville, MO.
She is survived by her daughters: Mary Frances Malone of Seaton, MO and Ruth Wayne Asher and husband, Jackson of St. James, MO; Daughter-in-laws: Joyce (Doss) Ness of Freistat, MO and Anita Kay (Whitson) Ness of Paris, MO; two sons: Dewey Wade Ness and wife Sandra Faith (Douglas) of St. James, MO and Larry Bryan and Ruth Ann (Williams) of Cook Station, MO; and 11 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandchildren with many nieces and nephews.
She is preceded in death by her parents, James and Ethel Schoonover; her husband, Wayne R. Ness; two sons: Stanley Roy Ness and Gary Dale Ness; three brothers: Henry, Theodore, and James; three sisters: Melvina Pearl Dace, Alna Lucille (Hawkins) Hedrick and Billie Ellen Harman; and one son-in-law, Gilbert B. Malone.
Mary and Wayne bought the Polly Jones farm in the early 1940s where they raised their family and farmed. Mom loved to hunt squirrels. She would sit under a mulberry or a hickory tree for hours shooting squirrels with a 22 rifle. She just enjoyed being in the woods. She enjoyed quilting; she belonged to a quilting club with neighborhood ladies for many years. She was always gardening, hunting mushrooms, and working with the kids on the farm raising cattle while Wayne worked at Wagner Electric in St. Louis.
Mary started writing The Benton Creek News for the Steelville Star in the ’80s and continued to do so up to a few years ago.
Mary and Wayne loved to travel. They have seen from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico.
