Thelma Lurana Rogers

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Thelma Lurana Rogers, 91, of Poplar Bluff, formerly of Princeton, Ind., died on the evening of Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003, at the CedarGate Care Center in Poplar Bluff. Mrs. Rogers was born July 22, 1912, in Rossville, Kan., to Ernest Whitfield and Mary Frances Peters. She graduated with the 1932 high school graduating class of Princeton, Ind. She was instrumental in keeping her classmates connected over the years by organizing semi-annual class reunions and dinners. She served as the loan officer and office manager of the former First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Princeton until her retirement in 1979. She was a lifelong choir and faithful church member of the Memorial Methodist Church (which following a merger, is now the Hillside United Methodist Church of Princeton, Ind.). She served on various church committees, and she took her Christian faith seriously! Along with her love for her church, she loved her Masonic fraternities and orders, Eastern Star, White Shrine, Amaranth. She was an over-fifty-year member and served as Worthy Matron on several occasions and also as an officer of all the organizations for many years. Thelma sang with the Evansville Orchestra 100-Member Choir for over ten years, and with the Purdue University Choral Club for many years. She had a lifelong love for oil painting. Many of her mentors were Miss Pansy Blaze of Princeton, Joe Smith and Marie McCord of Oakland City University and most recently Bill Bayer of St. Louis. She finished over thirty art show quality works in the last two years of her life. Thelma Rogers used her computer everyday to communicate with her friends and family. She was truly a uniquely talented and wonderful person who dearly loved her family, her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends. Survivors include one daughter, Betty Jo Mackle and husband Tom, of El Granada, Calif.; one son, Carl Ernest Rogers and wife Beverly of Poplar Bluff; four grandchildren, Debby Eads Hallman and husband Clint of Grapevine, Texas, Angela Gottschall and husband Grant of Agoura Hills, Calif., Jacquie Renee Campbell and husband Jason of Dededo, Guam, and Nathan Whitfield Rogers of St. Louis; and two great-grandchildren, Alexandra Hartley and Samuel Richard Gottschall of Agoura Hills, Calif. Arrangements are being made by the White-Sanders Funeral Chapel of Fisk, with a graveside service to be held Thursday, Aug. 21, 2003, at 1 p.m. at the Maple Hill Cemetery of Princeton, Ind. Rev. James F. Sanders will be officiating. The family requests that memorials be made in the name of Thelma L. Rogers and sent to the Hillside United Methodist Church, 225 West Emerson Street, Princeton, Ind. 47670-1511. PAID

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