Myra Elizabeth (Warren) Dickerson, age 100 years, passed away peacefully on Monday, August 13, 2012, in York. She was born January 16, 1912 in Bloomingdale, Mich. to Herman and Effie Warren.
She attended Evergreen one-room country school and Bloomingdale High school, followed by a four-year AB degree in Later Elementary Education from Western Michigan State in Kalamazoo, Mich. Myra married her high school sweetheart, Gordon B. Dickerson, on September 11, 1933 and they took her father and a neighbor with them on their honeymoon trip to the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Myra and Gordon started their lives together in Madison, Wis., where Gordon earned his MS and PhD in Animal Genetics, with Myra’s computational and typing assistance. Myra completed practice teaching, but never taught school because, in the depression period of high unemployment, teachers with employed husbands were not hired. Myra’s teaching centered instead on her four sons, who at high school graduation received special awards for achievement in science and mathematics, and developed careers as two medical doctors, an agricultural specialist, and clinical psychologist.
Myra was active in the American Baptist Church in Madison, Wis., Ames, Iowa, and Columbia, Mo., and in the United Church of Canada in Ottawa, ONT. In California she was an active member of Centerville Presbyterian Church of Fremont, and since 1967 has been a member of the Eastridge Presbyterian Church of Lincoln. At Eastridge she was active in the United Presbyterian Women, Prayer Chain, Bethel Bible Seekers Study, as a Deacon, and in the Stephen’s Ministry calling on shut-ins.
Beginning in 1971 she led a quilting project at the Clark Jeary Manor that produced an average of 30 quilts per year to be given to needy care organization in Lincoln.
Myra accompanied Gordon on numerous national and international scientific meeting over 60 years, building lasting friendships with colleagues in Scandinavia, Western Europe, Russia, Near East, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. She was a gracious hostess to many international visitors and numerous graduate students over decades of academic involvement.
Myra is preceded in death by her husband Gordon, and the three sisters that raised her when her mother passed away at a young age. She is survived by her four sons and their wives: Alfred ‘Bud’ and Pat of Albuquerque, N.M.; Malcolm and Vera of Lake Ozark, Mo.; Dave and Linda of York; and Dean and Susan of Davis, Calif.; 11 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren scattered across Califonia, Washington, Colorado, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, and Ecuador. She is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews in the Bloomingdale, Mich. area.
A service of Celebration of Life will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 25, 2012 at Eastridge Presbyterian Church, 1135 Eastridge Drive, Lincoln.
Memorials may be directed to Peoples City Mission, 110 Q Street, Lincoln, NE 68501. No visitation.