Alice Cotton

Alice Cotton, 90, of rural Garden County passed away Friday evening, September 27, 2024 at the Garden County Health Services Hospital.

A gathering of family and friends and a memorial service will be at her home on the ranch on Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 11 a.m. Come, bring your chair or horse and celebrate Alice’s life.

Memorials in Alice's name can be made to the family for later designation.

Holechek-Bondegard Funeral Home and Cremations in Oshkosh is serving the Cotton family.

Alice I. Cotton was born on July 27, 1934 to Fred and Eva (Simpson) Wills of rural Alliance, Nebraska. She grew up being a tomboy and riding horses, always wanting to best her older brother Bud. Alice also had two older sisters, Irene and Verna, and a younger brother Dale. She attended rural District #22 school and graduated from Alliance High School. 

In 1953 in a car with her baby daughter she traveled by a lone tree on her way to a new home in the sandhills on the Sibbitt south ranch. She had no idea then that years later with her daughter (Penny) and son (Fritz), she would remarry and spend the rest of her life looking out her window at that same lone tree. In 1967 she married Sid Cotton and in 1970 was blessed with another son Tuff (Ira Sidney Jr.).

Alice loved horses, she could rope and drag calves to the branding fire or drive a team of horses if needed. She rode her big buckskin, Handy, running barrels and heeling steers. Many times she roped with Denny and she always said it was bad when he had to rope with his mother-in-law! She would tell you she had been kicked and bucked off a few times. One story was about the “Red” horse mom rode. On the way back home there at the pass he bucked her off hard. She lost hearing aids and false teeth. Red bucked her off many times with the same results, but she always got back on him. She even rode a few racehorses in her younger years, once run over by seven horses. She was known to ride a few steers early on and even got on a bull in Bridgeport one year. A real cowgirl and a hero to all who knew her but to some she was ‘Just Alice’!

Alice worked her big garden and yard; she would say she had her Daddy’s green thumb. She made the best dill pickles around and all her grandkids ate them up. Her jellies and chocolate cakes were pretty good too. As a grandma, she loved teaching her grandkids anything from baking angel food cakes from scratch, to working leather; letting them loose in her leathershop. 

Mom was happiest at her home on the ranch. She would check the cows, herd the goats, tool a belt, mend a pair of reins or make a pair of chinks. She would try doing or making about anything. Mom enjoyed a cup of coffee from her kitchen table looking at the wildlife or looking out at that lone tree in the heart of her sandhills. Often times she would say that it was snowing so hard she couldn’t see past the lone tree or there are three deer down by the tree. A lot of card games were played at that table with kids or friends, she liked to win. The ranch was home, she didn’t need to go to town to shop, she could make do with about anything but….. if you are coming, could you bring a can of chew!

Again, like that lone tree she has weathered life’s storms. On September 27, 2024 after suffering from cancer and pain, she is free and going to her green, green grass of home.

Alice was preceded in death by her parents, sisters, a brother, her husband Sid Cotton and son-in-law Denny Mekelburg. She is survived by her children Penny Mekelburg, Fritz (Deanna) Miller and Tuff Cotton, grandchildren BJ (Jill) Mekelburg, Jamie Jo (Brian) Axtell, Cameron Miller, Cody (Tana) Miller, Caila (Arno) Botha, Chase Cotton and Addison Cotton, as well as thirteen great grandkids, her brother Dale, nieces and nephews, many of her sandhills family and friends and her companion “Little Dog”.