Merle E. Uerkvitz

©Enid News and Eagle

Publication Unknown

Submitted by Jo Aguirre

Merle E. Uerkvitz

WATONGA - A private family service for Merle Evangeline Uerkvitz, 98, will be conducted at 11 a.m. Saturday in the IOOF Cemetery at Watonga. The Rev. Jim Forrest will officiate. A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the First Christian Church at Watonga. Arrangements are by Wilkinson Mortuary.

She was born Aug. 13, 1896, one of four children to J . H. and Mattie Elizabeth Williams Geeslin and died Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1994. When she was 12, her mother died and her father later married Edna Boll, a widow with six children. The family lived on a farm in Blaine County, east of Greenfield and southeast of Watonga. She attended Pleasant Valley School, then finished high school in Oklahoma City. She attended college at Weatherford and taught in a one-room school at Mount Pleasant and Canadian Valley.

On April 25, 1920, she married Robert Uerkvitz. They farmed southwest of Watonga for approximately 40 years. He died in 1962. She rented out the land, but remained on the farm until 1970 at which time she moved to Watonga. In 1981, she moved to San Antonio. She was a homemaker and an active member of the Watonga Christian Church. She taught Sunday school classes for many years and helped organize the Red Hill Club (home demonstration club) in Blaine County, serving as its first president. She also was president of the County Council and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, Watonga Garden Club and a volunteer with the Hospital Auxiliary.

Surviving are four daughters, Mattie Elizabeth Holland of Houston, Texas, Carol Joy Pregill of Phoenix, Ariz., Ernestine Shirey of Abilene, Texas, and Betty Jo Tillman of San Antonio,Texas; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.