MATTIE (WILLIAMS) MCVEY 1906 - 2007
Our beloved mother, grandmother, great grandmother, mentor and friend passed away peacefully at home in Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, September 9th 2007. She was 100 years of age.

A visitation for family and friends will be held Saturday, September 15th 2007 from 1 to 3 pm at Fidler-Isburg Funeral Chapel in Spearfish, South Dakota. Burial will be at 3 pm in the McVey Family plot at Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish, with Pastor Peg Grzelkowski officiating. A reception will follow at the McVey Ranch in Spearfish Valley.

Her family invites you to join them in celebration of her life at a Memorial Service to be announced at a later date at Fidler-Isburg Funeral Chapel with a reception following at the McVey Ranch in Spearfish Valley.

In lieu of flowers, charitable remembrances can be made to Grace Balloch Memorial Library, 625 5th Street, Spearfish, South Dakota 57783.

Mattie was born in Mansfield, Missouri, the third of four children, on December 31, 1906 to Nancy E. (Tinkle) and George F. Williams. In 1907 she moved with her parents and two sisters, Ruby (Dodds) and Cleo (Conrad), to South Dakota where they lived on a homestead in Fall River County. Her brother, Jess, was born there in 1909. The family moved to Baker, Oregon, in 1914, where she attended public schools. She returned to Hot Springs, South Dakota, where she attended and graduated from Hot Springs High School with the Class of 1926. She enjoyed school and sports, participating in basketball all four years of high school, receiving a medal each year; a quote from the Hot Springs newspaper says, "Mattie Williams never seems to miss a basket...".

A dedicated student determined to better herself with education, she worked full time and attended Spearfish Normal School (now Black Hills State University) in Spearfish, South Dakota, graduating in 1930 with a Teaching Certificate. She was a member of Kappa Delta Phi (International Education Honor Society). For the next two years she taught rural schools in the Spearfish vicinity in both Butte and Lawrence Counties. She also taught first grade in the Nisland public school system for three years. She greatly enjoyed teaching and told many delightful stories of the children she loved and their hard working parents that so clearly represented the rural community way of life of America in the 1930s.

Mattie met Walter Edwin McVey, her husband-to-be, while she was teaching. They were married in 1932 and lived on the McVey homestead ranch in Spearfish Valley. In addition to being a full time homemaker dedicated to raising five children, she actively participated in the responsibilities of a rancher's wife and the affairs of the Spearfish Valley community. Following the death of her husband in 1949, she continued to successfully run the ranch until those responsibilities were taken over by her oldest child/son Walter William McVey in 1965. She then moved to the city of Spearfish where she lived in the early-day McVey Family home built in 1904.

Once retired, Mattie continued to pursue her creative interests of drawing and china painting, reading, gardening, traveling with her daughter Diann and sewing. She also enjoyed participating in the activities of Eastern Star-a member since 1942, Lower Valley Extension Club-becoming a 50 year member in 1983, the Lawrence County Historical Society, and civic duties with the Republican Party.

Preceding her in death are her husband Walter E., her son and daughter-in-law, Walter W. and Verna McVey, her sisters Cleo and Ruby and her brother Jess.

Mattie is survived by her half-brother Glenn Williams of Baker City, OR; daughters Nancy Lee Mackaben (Carl) of Morongo Valley, CA; Peggy Lu Zimmerman (Don) of State College, PA; Cleo Gay McVey of Maple Valley, WA; and Diann Villano (Maurice) of Lewistown, PA. She is grandmother and great grand mother to: Walter's family - John McVey and wife Lynne and daughters Marie and Caroline and David McVey and son Connor; and Gay's family - Justin Polley and wife Kayo; Beth (Polley) Fitzgerald and son Dylan; and Jason Polley and wife Michele and sons Joshua and Cameron.

Arrangements are under the care of Fidler-Isburg Funeral Chapel of Spearfish, SD.