Maria Oralia Estel [Ortiz] Nickels was born August 22, 1981, in Lawton, Oklahoma, and died August 9, 2004, in Lawton.

Maria attended Lawton Public Schools. She graduated from Technical Training (STT) where she received her nursing certification as nursing assistant, home healthcare, restoration aide, medication aide, and phlebotomy. Maria worked at Comanche County Memorial Hospital as a nursing assistant and worked for Oklahoma Blood Institute. She had also worked in Maryland at the dialysis center. Maria was currently working at Comanche County Detention Center.

She and Danny Fairfield were engaged to be married.

Survivors include one daughter, Kourtney Marie Gilliland, of the home; fiancé, Danny Fairfield of Tucson, Arizona; mother and stepfather, Diana and James Nix of Lawton, Oklahoma; father, Wyman Trinadad Ortiz of Shawnee, Oklahoma; one sister and brother-in-law, Ladonna and Luke Harris of Sumter, South Carolina; one brother, Wyman Trinadad Doucette of Lawton, Oklahoma; grandparents, Pablo and Maria Ortega of Harper, Texas, Esther Brewster of Lawton, Oklahoma and Maria Oralia Carpenter of Ada, Oklahoma; great grandmother, Elizabeth Ortega of Robert Lee, Texas; two stepbrothers and two stepsisters, David, Jennifer, Ryan and Ashley Nix; aunt, uncles, nieces and nephews.

Interment will be at the Highland Cemetery, Lawton, Oklahoma, under the direction of Sevier Funeral Home.