Sarah Lorraine Mills Niehus

© Worley-Luginbuel Funeral Home of Grove
Submitted by: ACL

Funeral services for Sarah Lorraine Mills Niehus, 92, will be at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, November 27, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Grove, Oklahoma, with burial in the Zena Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 26. Worley-Luginbuel Funeral Home, Grove, is in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. Niehus died Tuesday, November 22, 2011, at her residence in the Zena community. The ninth of ten children, she was born May 14, 1919, in the Union Community near Colcord, Oklahoma to Oscar Henderson and Dora Belle Apple Mills.

Lorraine is a 1937 graduate of Jay High School. She served 28 years as bookkeeper and assistant tag agent at the Ford dealership in Grove and was active in church and community affairs.

A member of the Lutheran Church, in recent years she regularly attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and participated in many service projects, especially the Prayers and Squares program. She served on various civic and cultural boards and organizations, including the Delaware County Historical Society, Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees Quilt Guild, Sweet Annie Herb Club, and Dennis Friendship Club. Lorraine was instrumental in the development of the Delaware County Friendship Home and Recycling Center of Jay, Oklahoma, and the Green Dumpster trash program.

A textile artist, sewing came so natural for Lorraine that as a high school senior, she made a formal gown for the football queen’s coronation and designed many of her own clothes. A lifelong interest, during her retirement years she turned her love for sewing into a cottage industry in which her original dolls were sold in specialty shops under the label, “Dolls by Sara Lorin.” Some of her textile art and teddy bears were sold through the World Trade Center in Dallas, and the Sturbridge Yankee Workshop Catalog.

In addition to producing hundreds of textile heirlooms and original works of art, she made over fifty award winning quilts. Her work has been shown in numerous quilt shows and exhibitions and featured in National Quilting Association’s Quarterly, Oklahoma Home Garden, and other publications. Her hand-stitched Oklahoma Sampler quilt was displayed in the office of Senator James Inhoff in Washington, DC., in 1994, one of six quilts chosen to represent the state of Oklahoma during the celebration of National Quilt Day.

Coming from a musical family, Lorraine had a beautiful alto voice and a natural ear for harmony. She was also a gifted writer, creating a number of poems and stories about growing up in northeast Oklahoma.

She is preceded in death by her husband of 49 years, Glenn Harold Orville Niehus, and a son, Donald Glenn Niehus. She is survived by two daughters, Carol (Darrell) Nesbitt, Siloam Springs, Arkansas, Glenda (Baxter) Bryant, Cullman, Alabama, a son, Joe (Beverly) Niehus, Zena, Oklahoma, seven grandchildren, David (Michael Ross) Nesbitt, East Point, Georgia, Donald (Patricia) Nesbitt, Centerton, Arkansas, Nathaniel (Susan) Niehus, Zena, Oklahoma, Meredith (Brent) Panell, Alabaster, Alabama, Nicole Niehus, Rustin, Louisiana, Caroline (Jason) Moody, Cullman, Alabama, Aaron Niehus, Zena, Oklahoma, four great-grandchildren, and a sister, Dorothy Ray, of Riverside, California.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials be made to Good Shepherd Hospice, 2084 S. Main, Grove, OK 74344, Heart of God--Feeding the Poor, P.O. Box 1356, Fort Gibson, OK 74434, Oak Grove Community Center, 54462 E. 331 Road, Jay, OK 74346, or St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 555 East Third Street, Grove, OK 74344

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