- Date Of Birth: May 26, 1922
- Date Of Death: January 31, 2020
- State: Colorado
Vera E. Trussell, beloved Matriarch of the Trussell family, died at 97 years of age at the Porter Hospice facility on Thursday, January 31st, 2020. She died of natural causes passing peacefully in her sleep.
Vera was born on May 26, 1922 in Newcastle, Oklahoma, moving to the Texas panhandle when her family migrated west. Raised in Plainview, Texas as one of nine children during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl her character was forged by those events. She had a fierce love of family, a wonderful sense of humor, compassion for anyone that needed help and a fiery spirit that would stand up to any adversity or adversary.
Marriage to Hugh Trussell in 1950 started her on a journey across the West. While he was engaged in building pipelines across Nebraska and Wyoming, she was part of the family support system that followed the workers and set up camp along the way. Her daughter, Nancy, was born in 1951, and the family settled in Denver in 1952. For 35 years, Vera was a beauty consultant for Merle Norman Cosmetics in Denver and at the age of 97 was still the best advertisement they could ever have asked for.
Vera is survived by: her daughters Nancy and husband Don in Colorado, and Paulette and husband Sam in New Mexico; her grandchildren Shanelle Osmundson in California, Ryan Osmundson in Colorado, Nick Osmundson in Washington, Krista Osmundson in Colorado and Mindy Kovacs in New Mexico; her great grandchildren including Teagan Osmundson, Declan Osmundson and Stephen Kovacs; and many nieces and nephews, as well as her last surviving sibling Tillie Webster in Texas.
She was preceded in death by her husband Hugh H. Trussell; sisters Cleo Collins, Marie “Daught” Hancock, and Verna Livingston; and, brothers Robert Snelson, Jimmie Ray “Yank” Snelson, Thomas Jefferson “TJ” Snelson and Charles Snelson.
