Mary Ellen Bennett Salmon Wenzlick, 87, of Oshkosh, passed away Saturday morning, October 13, 2012 at the Garden County Nursing Home in Oshkosh.
Cremation has taken place and there are no formal services planned.
Family and friends may sign the guest book and leave condolences online at www.holechekfuneralhomes.com.
A memorial has been established in Mary’s name to the Oshkosh Library or the Garden Count EMS.
Holechek Funeral Home & Cremations in Oshkosh is serving the Wenzlick family.
Mary, third child of Chester Otis and Thelma Eleanor (Tippetts) Bennett, was born October 17, 1924 in a private home in Lewellen, Nebraska. She was raised in a two-room sod house at her folks’ homestead ranch, twenty-eight miles northeast of Oshkosh. She attended the Rackett School, 3 miles away, through the 7th grade. She attended 8th – 12th grade in Oshkosh and graduated from Garden County High School in 1942.
She attended nurses training from 1942 – 1945 at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Hastings, Nebraska. She participated in the Cadet Nurse Corps (founded during World War II) and served at Barnes General Hospital in Vancouver, Washington.
She spent from 1945 to 1950 in the Canal Zone, Panama, working as a civil service nurse at the Colon Hospital. There she met and married Marvin Lee Salmon in 1947. Two daughters were born there (Linda Lucille and Cheryl Anne).
After leaving Panama, they lived briefly in Alliance and Lewellen, Nebraska (where Jacquelyn Sue was born); and then moved to Santa Monica, California (where Deborah Kay was born). In 1964, after 10 years in California, they moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Marvin worked for the US Postal Service. Marvin passed away suddenly in May of 1971.
Mary and daughters continued to live in Colorado Springs.
In 1975, Mary married Clarence Wenzlick and moved to Nebraska to live where he worked on a ranch for Grace Land and Cattle Company. During the time living in the Sandhills of Nebraska, Mary enjoyed the hobby of crafts, painting and other art work.
In 1983, they retired and moved to The Bennett home ranch where she was raised. In November, 1998, Clarence and Mary moved to Oshkosh, Nebraska. Clarence passed away December 26, 2003.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Chester and Thelma Bennett, brother Melvon, and sister Doris Richstein. She is survived by her younger sister Lois of Ainsworth, Nebraska and her children, grandchildren (Richard, Amy and Robert) and her great grandchildren (Mackenzie Lee, Lauren Michelle, and Mairi Rose).