Nora Elizabeth (Wenzel) Bovee

Posted

(Sept. 27, 2008)

Funeral services will be Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 10:30 a.m. at Thompson Funeral Home in Powell for Nora Elizabeth (Wenzel) Bovee, 91, who died Saturday, Sept. 27 at West Park Long Term Care Center in Cody.

Burial will follow in Crown Hill Cemetery.

Nora was born March 15, 1917, to Walter F. and Kate B. Wenzel on their homestead at Bixby, S.D.  She attended elementary school at Brushy, S.D., and graduated from high school in Bison, S.D. She went on to graduate from Black Hills Teachers College in Spearfish, S.D., and taught school at South Canyon in Rapid City, S.D., and then in Wyoming at Alva, Powell and the Valley School on the South Fork of the Shoshone River.

She met her future husband, Leslie Bovee, at a dance at the old schoolhouse in Garland in 1946. Nora’s sister, Dot, says Les “met his fate” at the dance. Les and Nora were married June 1, 1947, and moved onto Les’s homestead on Heart Mountain.

She always welcomed into her home children who needed a place. She enjoyed old-time western music and loved to square dance and watch professional bull riding. She realized a lifetime dream when she traveled to China in the 1980s.

Nora was awarded the coveted Quealy Award for outstanding service in club work for the Park County Extension Homemakers Club in 1983.

She was a lifetime member of the Rebekah Lodge and the Park County Homemakers Extension Club. She opened her own ceramics shop on Heart Mountain in 1964 and operated it for almost 40 years.

Survivors include her husband of 61 years, Leslie Bovee; her sister, Dorothy French of Enning, S.D.; special family members Barb and Tuck Fulton of Powell; her brothers-in-law, Bob Bovee (Margaret) of Cody and Carrol Bovee (Judy) of Arizona; her former sister-in-law, Bette Bovee of Washington; and 21 nieces and nephews.

Nora was like a mother to Barb Fulton, a niece, and Les and Nora were considered another set of grandparents to Tuck and Barb’s four daughters. It goes without saying she was a huge part of many lives and will be greatly missed.

She was preceded in death by her parents; a sister, Katherine (Kay); brothers, Walter (Bud) and William (Bill); one nephew, three great-nephews, one great-niece and three great-great nieces.

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