Wilma Josephson Watson (Conner)

Petite, very neat and well dressed, immaculate housekeeper, rather hyper, loved her neices & nephews, loved her brothers and sisters. She studied to be a hair dresser and she and Eula did each others hair well into their years. Wilma shared a beautiful home and very neat farm with Vern in Abbyville before Vern sold the farm and built another beautiful home in Hutchinson where they moved in 1951. Through Verns construction business they developed a social life that they never found time for on the farm and did some traveling. Things began to change and Vern and Wilma eventually divorced. He later died while living out of state. Wilma brought him home to bury him. Wilma worked and lived alone for quite some years. She got re-acquainted with a cousin, Clifford Watson and they married in 1966. They had many happy years together before he died in 1974. They traveled to many places and visited relatives. They both loved their yard and enjoyed beautiful flowers.

During the last years of her marriage to Vern and into the following years she worked eight years for the CIty Offices where she managed the Transportation Department/Meters. She then worked four years for the Police Department as assistant manager of the Meter Department.

Wilma bought a duplex at 7 East 28th where she lived in the east side and rented out the west side. She remodeled the basement under her apartment making it another apartment to rent but she later decided to use the entire upper and lower levels for her own use. The kitchen on the lower level was larger so that is where she did most of her cooking but she had a natural gas grill added to her patio and that is where she liked to do steaks and roasts. She had a larger area to open out her table to serve guests in the lower level and she could move in and out on both levels from her patio. She had a beautiful rose garden just off the patio.

In the 50's she suffered from skin cancers and went to a special clinic for treatment. She was careful with her diet and followed any orders scrupulously. It seemed that she got it totally under control. However in 1993, her melanoma came back and grew very rapidly, this time in her head and she expired within a few short weeks from diagnosis.