Birth: August 19, 1925
Death: April 26, 2003
Location: Lot 27, Section 4, New Addition
WOOD RIVER — Vera Jameson, 77, of Wood River died Saturday, April 26, 2003, at the Western Hall Country Good Samaritan Center.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Apfel-O’Brien-Straatmann Funeral Home in Wood River. The Rev. John Ewton will officiate. Burial will be in Wood River Cem. Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.
Mrs. Jameson was born Aug. 19, 1925, on the family farm east of Cairo to Clarence B. and Marie (Madsen) Thienel.
Survivors of the immediate family include a son, Benjamin Bebee; two foster sons, Richard Purdie and Ronald and his wife Joyce Purdie; a brother, Dean Thienel of Grand Island; two sisters, Margaret Kempf of Wood River and Lois Derry of Idaho; and a sister-in-law, Barbara Thienel of Shelton. She was also survived by a grandson, Nickolas Purdie, two granddaughters, Nichole and Destin Stark, and a great-grandson, Jordan Stark.
She was baptized in the Baptist faith at the Cairo Baptist Church. Her youth was spent on the family farm. She attended rural School District 61, across the road from the family farm, with her high school days at Cairo High.
On Feb. 26, 1953, she married Harvey Richard “Bud” Bebee at her parents farm home. One child, Benjamin Clayton Bebee was born to this union. Vera and Bud became the foster parents of Ronald and Richard Purdie, sons of Vera’s sister, Margaret, after the death of Margaret’s husband, Lawrence Purdie.
Vera worked as a waitress in various cafes in Grand Island as well as being an attendant at a nursing home. Bud and Vera ran the Starlite Cafe in Columbus and Mumbys in Fairmont before moving to Wood River and purchasing the Dinette Cafe. Bud Bebee died on Dec. 17, 1970, in Grand Island.
David Jameson and Vera married on July 1, 1972, in Wood River. David died on Oct. 2, 1979, in Grand Island.
Vera was preceded in death by both of her husbands, her parents, an infant brothers, Leland, a brother, Curtis, and a sister, Betty Joslin.