POER, Nola Serena

The White Mountain Independent, Show Low, Arizona ~ March 29, 2007 Nola Serena Poer died peacefully in her sleep Wednesday, March 21, 2006, at her daughter's home in Sedona. Nola was the first child born to Sidney Oliver Earl and Viola Antionette Butler Earl July 2, 1914, in Concho. When Nola was seven the family moved by wagon, with livestock in tow, to Chino Springs, 12 miles south of Fort Apache. It was a two-day trip. The first night they camped at Cooley, which is now McNary, and the next night in Seven Mile Canyon. Later the family moved to Whiteriver where Nola went to grade school and then to Robert's Ranch, while she went to high school in McNary. She married George Poer on June 12, 1933, and they ran the dairy at the Teddy Roosevelt Boarding School in Fort Apache, until all the cows came down with garget, then an incurable disease, and had to be put down. They moved to Indian Pine (now Hondah) and ran a cafe for a while. George got a job with the state and they lived at Black River in a big tent, with a real floor and walls. That was heaven! The summer of '37 George worked the lookout tower at McKay's Peak. October of that year, George went to work for the McNary Lumber Company and worked for them the next 39 years. "Indoor plumbing was a number two washtub", according to Nola. They lived at the lumber camps of North Fork and Little Diamond. Thanksgiving 1947 brought a real adventure, they moved to the new logging camp at Maverick. They were mud-bound until spring. They moved to their home in Pinetop in 1951, where they stayed for the next 52 years.They moved to Sedona in 2003. Nola loved the 50's. She loved the music, the times, her teenagers and all their friends. She loved to take a car full of kids to ball games. She took in boarders; she helped raise nieces and nephews; and she tended grandchildren. She worked with the youth in her church until the 70's. She loved kids! Nola always made her own bread, picked the berries and made jams and jellies, canned, made lye soap and had the whitest wash in town (things we take for granted now). She is survived by sons Jack (Deloris) of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Dennis (JoAnn) of Hereford; daughter Jodeen (Stan) Stephens of Sedona; 10 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild; one brother Randell Earl of Prescott; three sisters-in-law, Dovie Earl of Show Low, Virginia Ann Kirkpatrick of Gilbert and Bobbie Poer of Slaton, Texas; and numerous nieces and nephews. Nola was preceded in death by her husband of almost 72 years; her parents; two brothers, Mervin and Chuck Earl; two sisters, Nelma Hutton and Ula Merrell; and five brothers-in law, Pete, Archie, Ben (and their wives) and Lewis Poer, Wayne Kirkpatrick; and one sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Jamison. Funeral services will be held Saturday, March 31, at 12 p.m. at the Pinetop Lakes LDS Ward Chapel, on Buck Springs Road in Pinetop. A viewing will be held from 11 a.m. to noon. Burial will be held in the Pinetop Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made in Mrs. Poer's name to: RTA Hospice, 70 Bell Rock Rd. Suite A, Village of Oak Creek, Sedona, AZ 86351 Bueler Funeral Home of Camp Verde handled arrangements.