Maryellen (Borden) Boone–August 3, 1922–October 29, 2012

 

Gary’s mother passed away on Monday.  She was 90 years old.  She had some sort of seizure – a heart attack or a stroke – and expired before the nursing home where she lived could even arrange an ambulance to take her to a hospital.  We now are on our way back in the car from southern Alabama to Indiana for the funeral.

 

 

 

 

As we reported in an earlier blog post, about a month ago we spent a week in Indiana visiting her each day at the nursing home.  We had all of the pictures from her home scanned and shared some pictures most days with her on the iPad.  She enjoyed looking at them and the memories they stirred in her.  She had said on an earlier visit that she would love to have a kitty sit on her lap that she could pet and we took Alley cat with us one day to her room.  We shared a peach pie we had made along with some ice cream.  We shared the stories of our travels with her and it stuck with her that we were going to visit the Louisville Slugger factory and museum.  Gary called her on Sunday, the day before she passed.  She asked if we had bought a baseball bat in Louisville.

She grew up on a farm south of Peru, Indiana.  She married her high school sweetheart, George.  They were married for 57 years at the time of his death in 1999.  For 87 years, she always lived within five miles of where she first lived as a child.  She was a family farm wife.  She raised three children.  She worked in the fields as well as taking care of the house and vegetable and flower gardens (she was one of the premier gardeners of the County.).  She was a faithful member of the First Christian Church and was active in church, community and school-related activities.  She was famous for her chicken and noodles, as finely hand cut as any noodles could be.  She was also famous for her pound cake.  She managed alone the farm and home for 10 years after George’s death.  Failing health and a robbery in her home at club point forced her into retirement communities, first in assisted living and then a nursing home in the final three years of her life.  She was the last of an era.  All of her brothers, sisters and in laws and most of the neighborhood farmers and their wives preceded her in death.  She is survived by three children, six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.