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PALMER, Dicia "Evelyn" (SMITH)

SMITH, PALMER, MYERS, SHOBE, CARSON, MOORE, PRICE, SIMMONS, ARNOLD, URY, AMEIGH, GEORGE

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 6/28/2018 at 18:51:24

Obituary ~ Dicia Evelyn (Smith) Palmer
October 21, 1927 - May 30, 2018

The Leon Journal Reporter
Leon, Decatur County, Iowa

Dicia Evelyn (Smith) Palmer, age 90, was born at home at the west edge of High Point Township, Decatur County, Iowa on October 21, 1927. She was the fifth of seven children born to James Lisle and Gladys Leone (Myers) Smith. She died at the Decatur County Hospital in Leon, Iowa on Wednesday, May 30, 2018.

Evelyn lived her younger years a little south of her birthplace across the road in Center Township. She attended Franklin Country School into the sixth grade. In the fall of 1939, the family moved into High Point Township farther east into Garden Grove Consolidated School District.

Evelyn was an outdoor chore girl. She brought the milk cows up and helped with the milking both places. She grew into turning the cream separator and fed bucket calves. In the winter she helped bring firewood from the snow covered woodpile to the house for another day’s supply to keep the fires going.

Evelyn finished through high school at Garden Grove, graduating in May of 1946. Then she went to Simpson College summer school to get a teaching certificate, which was good for three years. She contracted to teach a rural school north of Decatur and would stay with a family in the district through the week.

In August of 1946, between summer school and the beginning of her first year of teaching, she and Raymond Palmer found one another. Each had seen at a distance the other in the spring of 1942, soon after the Palmer Family moved into the Garden Grove area. They both liked what they saw but neither was able to pursue those hidden feelings at that time. A little over four years later their paths finally crossed. They soon realized it was love at first sight back in 1942. Because they were so sure they were meant to be together, they wanted to get married right away. They decided they couldn’t do that with her teaching, it was too far to drive every day in all kinds of weather on mostly dirt roads. She would stay with a family in the district. So Raymond took her there every Sunday and picked her up each Friday.

They were married May 17, 1947, three days after school ended. Raymond didn’t want her to go that far to teach the second year, so she got a school closer to home and taught a third year. Now, she needed more classes to be able to teach. Jimmy Lynn came into their family on April 21, 1950. Evelyn needed to be home with him, so she took correspondence classes while he was growing up a bit. She got back to teaching and continued taking night, Saturday, and summer classes working toward that degree. Raymond was still involved; he took her to some night classes.

After the rural schools were closing, Evelyn taught at Lineville/Clio, Mormon Trail, Clarke Elementary, and back to Leon’s Central Decatur, until she retired in 1989. She taught 38 years with students ranging from primary through the eighth grade.

After she retired, Evelyn and Raymond went to many auctions collecting lots of treasures. They were a close couple; they liked to do things together. If she wasn’t actually helping him with the work, she was usually there. They had a movie camera and have many farming activities and grandkids growing up on film.

They also spent time walking around cemeteries. Doing so, they found the graves of her Shobe great grandparents, each in a separate cemetery. They were also locating graves of Raymond’s family.

Evelyn’s life was filled with good every day common sense and she was happy she and Raymond shared a never-ending love with the same moral values. They had 68 wonderful years together. She was pleased with the life they lived and was glad they were able to take the two granddaughters into their home and care for them and help other family members when they needed a boost.

Being wealthy, owning a lot of land or other property was not important to her. It was far more important to her that each family member would achieve and be able to maintain a comfortable, satisfying life for their family with love. They would help them, if needed.

She was proud of those two granddaughters and five great grandsons. Grandpa and Grandma went to many volleyball, basketball, and softball games.

Evelyn and Raymond added photos and extended some information her sister, Frances, had gathered concerning the Mormon migration through this area and the Garden Grove settlement they established in 1848-49. This information, along with some Smith Family and other early settlers in the area was compiled and bound into a book in memory of Frances and her dad, Jim Smith, for the Garden Grove Sesquicentennial celebration in June 1996. It was a reminder of what used to be a very progressive town. In Evelyn’s younger days it was a very busy town with two blocks of businesses on both sides of the street. Modern methods and technology gradually took most of it away.

Evelyn was preceded in death by husband, Raymond, on April 6, 2015; son, Jimmy, in 2009; siblings, James and Helen Smith, Raymond Smith, Robert “Bob” and Lois Smith, and Frances and Don Carson; brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, Robert and Maxine Palmer, Wayne Palmer, Harold Palmer, Arnie Smith, and Ruth Palmer; nephew, Gary Moore; and niece, Vicky Price.

Survivors include her granddaughters, Denise Simmons and Tom Arnold of Murray, Iowa and Stacie and Ed Ury of Blythedale, Missouri; great grandsons, Corbin, Mason and fiancé Jen Ameigh, and Thane Simmons and Kayden and Karsyn Ury; sister, Karen George and husband, Joe, of Corydon, Iowa; sisters-in-law, Christine Smith of Madrid, Iowa, Hazel Smith of Decatur, Iowa, and Ladine Palmer of Leon, Iowa; brother-in-law, Carrel Palmer of Garden Grove, Iowa; nieces and nephews; and other relatives and friends. And hopefully many of those students she taught and strived for guidance that would help them to be successful citizens. It was rewarding for her to know several have come back to this area to share knowledge they have gained with students of this time. Very different than when she was teaching, but so is everything else.

Funeral services will be held at the Slade – O’Donnell Funeral Home in Leon, Iowa at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 2, 2018, with Pastor Ron Helton officiating. Burial will be in the Garden Grove Cemetery, Garden Grove, Iowa. Memorials may be given to the Iowa Donor Network in Evelyn’s memory.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2018


 

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