Service: 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 14, Oakdale Cemetery. Visitation: 10 a.m. Saturday, Bentley Funeral Home, Wilton.

WILTON, Iowa — Marie F. Nicholas, 64, Wilton, passed away peacefully Friday, March 6, 2009, at Clarissa C. Cook Hospice House in Bettendorf. 

Serving as casketbearers will be Jerry Johnson, Doug Nauman, Kirk Trede, Dave Mohr, Roger Sessler and Ken Lincoln.

Interment will take place at the Oakdale Cemetery, Wilton.

Memorial, may be made to Clarissa C. Cook Hospice House, Bettendorf, in her memory.

Online remembrances and condolences may be left at www.bentleyfuneralhome.com

Mrs. Nicholas was born Sept. 14, 1944,  in Emporia, Kan., the daughter of John and Helen (Phillips) Smith.  She married Melvin D. Nicholas on July 28, 1962, in Emporia.

She was a housewife and homemaker and in addition ran her Willowood Hearth arts and crafts business for more 20 years.

She enjoyed being a wife, mother and grandmother to her three precious grandchildren. 

She loved her family and friends and remained in close contact with all of them.  She also dearly loved children and donated many items to Newborns in Need and Toys for Tots.  She spent spring, summer and fall caring and tending her many gardens and flowerbeds.

She was a life long advocate of learning and developed a keen interest in health and medicine, rightfully professing to be her own best medical advocate.

She is survived and lovingly remembered by her husband, Mel Nicholas of Wilton; a son, Doug and his wife, Karla Nicholas and their children,  Maya, Paige and Seth all of Elizabeth, Ill.; a brother, Robert Smith and wife, Barb of Wichita, Kan.; a sister, Dorothy Speer and husband, Dave of Kansas City, Mo., and a host of other relatives and friends.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two children in infancy,  Angela and Lance Nicholas; and brothers,  Donald and Jack Smith.