Ellen Annette (Wood) Wilson
Ellen Annette (Wood) Wilson, 91, entered the gates of heaven on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021 at Kansas City Hospice House in Kansas City, Missouri, due to acute hypoxic respiratory failure and pneumonia from the COVID-19 virus.
She was born in Benkelman, Nebraska Jan. 7, 1930 to Emma Frances (Kuhns) Wood and Claude Albert Wood.
She rode a horse and buggy or horse to Richards Country School with the help of Harry Martin, a neighbor boy who lived close to her family. Her father would place hot bricks in the buggy to keep her warm in the winter. She graduated from Benkelman High School in 1948 and finished her education at Chillicothe Business School in Chillicothe, Missouri.
Annette (as she was called) returned home to the family farm northwest of Benkelman and taught first through eighth grades in one room at the Dixon School which was just a short distance from her home.
She married Paul Kaye Wilson on April 27, 1952 at the First United Methodist Church in Benkelman.
Kaye was in the Navy, so they both traveled to The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland where he worked as a Navy Hospital Corpsman. After four short weeks, the U.S. Navy decided to send them to Honolulu, Hawaii. So, they packed up and went back to Nebraska. From there Kaye went to Honolulu. A month later, Annette joined him after a day and a half flight. On Oct. 28, 1953, while stationed in Honolulu, she gave birth to their first child, Van.
After Paul Kaye’s Korean War military service, they returned to Nebraska where Ellen was born on Oct. 26, 1956 and Lisa was born on Oct. 24, 1962. They lived in several cities in Nebraska before settling in Ralston for over 40 years. In February of 2018, they moved to Lenexa, Kansas into an apartment to be closer to their daughter, Lisa.
From April 2019 to January 2021, Annette lived at Benton House Assisted Living in Lenexa, Kansas.
While in Ralston, she was active with the United Methodist Women and participated in the Naomi-Ruth Circle at Trinity United Methodist Church in Ralston. She was a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood (Philanthropic Educational Organization) and volunteered as a mentor for the TeamMates mentoring program (founded by Coach Tom Osborne and his wife, Nancy) in the Papillion/LaVista School District. She worked for Welcome Wagon as a sales representative and promoted businesses in the community.
She liked reading, traveling, cooking, Omaha Symphony, supper clubs, gardening, canning, golfing and watching old shows like Gunsmoke and The Waltons. She was famous for her pickled beets, pecan sticky buns, cookies and breads. She enjoyed baking for the neighborhood kids, and they ended up baking for her.
Annette is survived by her daughter, Lisa (Wilson) Winscott and husband, Michael, of Shawnee, Kansas; brother, Keith Wood and wife, Barbara, of Benkelman; stepsister, Joan Bartels and husband, Dick, of Imperial.
She leaves five grandchildren: Gordon Roufeh, Johnathan Roy, Sarah Roy, Kelsey (Winscott) Potter, Joshua Winscott; great grandchildren: Isabella, Jayden, Juliette and Samuel; her nieces and nephew: Lynnel Heaton, Rhonda Kathol, Bobette Maier, Pam Charette and Clay Hoffler.
Other survivors include her husband’s sister-in-law, Sharon Wilson of Henrico, Virginia, and his niece and nephews: Abbie Widger, James Widger, Mark Wilson, Isaac Wilson and Paul Wilson.
Annette was preceded in death by her parents; her husband who died April 23, 2019; her son, Van Cleave Wilson; her daughter, Ellen Kaye (Wilson) Roy; her sister, Doralee (Wood) Hoffler, and a baby sister, Frances, who died at birth in 1928.
Memorial donations in her honor may be made to TeamMates at https://teammates.org/for-donors/donation-form/. At a later date, her ashes along with her husband’s, will be interred together at the Riverside Cemetery at Wauneta.