Viola May Pearson

Mrs. Pearson died Friday, June 18, 2004, at Chandler Regional Hospital.

She was born May 24, 1912, in Vassar, the daughter of Henry W. and Edna May Kraft Scheid. She grew up in Osage County, where she attended Vassar Grade School and graduated from Lyndon High School in 1932. She then moved to Topeka and returned to Osage County in 1940. She moved to a farm south of Ottawa in 1959 and into Ottawa in 1967. She had lived in Chandler since 1993.

Mrs. Pearson was a homemaker and helped her husband on their farm. She was a 50-year member of Vassar United Methodist Church and was presently a member of First Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz. She had also attended Calvary Baptist Church, Faith Bible Church and Ottawa Bible Church, all in Ottawa.

She married Raymond A. Pearson on Oct. 1, 1932, in Vassar. He died June 22, 1990.

A grandson, Steven Conde, also died earlier.

Survivors include three daughters, Shirley May Bornsheuer, Carbondale, Marla Kay Paulison, Mesa, Ariz., and Berlene Gay Sellens, Ottawa; three sons, Leslie Ray Pearson, Melbourne, Fla., Merlin Leroy Pearson, Scranton, and Bruce Calvin Pearson, Olathe; two brothers, Gerald Henry Scheid and Virgil Odell Scheid, both of Vassar, and two sisters, Norma Lucille Allison, Lyndon, and Lois Edna Neilson, Pomona; 15 grandchildren; 11 stepgrandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; several stepgreat-grandchildren; and four great-great-grandchildren.

Friends may call from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. today and from 8:30 a.m. until the service hour Thursday at Dengel & Son Mortuary in Ottawa, where family will receive friends from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. today.

The family suggests memorials to First Baptist Church of Tempe, sent in care of the mortuary, 235 S. Hickory, Ottawa 66067.

E-mail condolences may be sent to dengelmortuary@sbcglobal.net.