Juanita McGee (Wilson) Whittenberg, age 97, died September 19, 2016 of age related causes. Services will be at 2:00 pm, Saturday, September 24 at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home, Enid, Oklahoma with Reverend Phil Jones officiating. Burial will follow at Memorial Park Cemetery.
Juanita was born October 23, 1918, outside Corinth, Montana, to Lula Joy (Culwell) Wilson and Clark Garl Wilson. It was 19 days before the end of WWI. At that time horse power was a real horse and running water was the creek beside the house which was built into the side of a hill for protection from the weather. Rounding up and green-breaking wild horses for the army was a profitable profession.
After the war the Wilsons moved back to Oklahoma by rail instead of covered wagon as they had come to Montana. They located in Lenora just down the road from Joy’s brother, Les Culwell, who was married to Clark’s sister, Gertrude, and their two daughters, Frances and Leola. The three girls rode their horses to school just as they had in Montana. April 14, 1927, Juanita’s mother died of pneumonia and she (8 ½) and her brother, Marvin Lee (2 ½) moved in with their double cousins.
In the middle of the Dust Bowl and The Great Depression in 1935, Juanita graduated valedictorian from Taloga High School and on July 17, 1938 married the love of her life Kenneth Franklin Whittenberg when he got a job with the Department of Agriculture and they could afford to marry. They learned not to make a mountain out of a mole hill, not to put all their eggs in one basket, and not to spin their wheels, but to use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
Their daughter, Joy, was born 3/28/41, nine months before Pearl Harbor, and their son, Kenneth Lee, was born 4/11/44, two months before Germany surrendered. In 1945, Juanita rode a troop train to California and back to visit Kenneth before he shipped out on the U.S.S. Bennington just as Japan surrendered.
After his year in the Navy, Kenneth was assigned office manager of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) in Enid and it became their home for the next 54 years. They marveled as their world became motorized, electrified, and air born.
Juanita worked at Hurwitz Men’s Clothiers, Evan’s Drug, and the Oklahoma Employment Commission but her real job was homemaker (seamstress, nurse, dietitian, chauffeur, vet, councilor, historian, innovator, camper and adventurer). In 1974 she joined Kenneth in retirement and they traveled in their motor home from Florida to California, Canada to Mexico and all the family, friends, and interesting sights in all 50 states including Alaska and Hawaii. Kenneth and Juanita were long-time members of the First United Methodist Church of Enid.
At 80 she rode the mules down the Grand Canyon, at 82, welcomed a new century and a new daughter-in-law when Ken married Mary Stover and they combined their three households, and at 92, after Ken’s death, she moved in with her daughter and son-in -law and became a “Texan” with a shrug and a smile.
Juanita was preceded in death by her husband, Kenneth F., in 1995, her son, Kenneth L. in 2010. She is survived by her brother, Marvin Lee Wilson, Stillwater, OK, daughter-in-law Mary Whittenberg, Enid, OK, daughter and son-in-law Joy and Glenn Richardson, Longview, TX, granddaughter and husband, Sheryl and Jon Lumbley, Red Oak, TX, grandson and wife, Greg and Carrie Richardson, Round Rock, TX,and four great-grandchildren, J.C. and Kristen Lumbley, Dallas, TX, and Meghan and Ian Richardson, Round Rock, TX. She is also survived by her very special nieces, Rhonda Leigh Wilson, Stillwater, OK, Allie Adel Roney, Barrington, IL, and Maryln Sue Turner, Littleton, CO.
Condolences may be made and services viewed online at www.ladusauevans.com
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