Margaret Louisa Pfeifer

Funeral This Thursday for Margaret Pfeifer, 96, Pioneer Resident

Funeral service for Margaret Louisa Pfeifer, 96, an early day Niobrara County Pioneer, will be held this Thursday, Sept. 14, at 2:00 p.m. at the Peet Chapel.

The Rev. Robert Boutwell, minister of the Congregational Church, will conduct the service. Organist, Mrs. A. F. DeCastro will accompany Russell Olmsted in singing "Asleep in Jesus" and "Lead Kindly Light."

Casket bearers were be Neal Grant, Emery Gaukel, Reg Bafford, Paul Heany, Burt Jones and Floyd Bartos. Burial will be in the Lusk Cemetery.

Margaret Louisa Atkinson, one of nine children of Jackson R. and Margaret Atkinson, was born in Jay County, Ind. near Salamonia, on January 7, 1876. After growing to young womanhood in the area she was married to Charles William Pfeifer on December 26, 1899. Mr. and Mrs. Pfeifer lived on a small farm in Jay County for the next ten years during which time Charles was teaching in the county schools.

Mr. Pfeifer suffered with an asthmatic condition and so the Pfeifers decided to seek another environment. Mrs. Pfeifer's brother, Dr. Daniel B. Atkinson became interested in the idea of establishing an institution of higher education in the newly developing areas of the west and endeavored to found the college or academy at Jireh, Converse County, Wyoming, about 15 miles west of Lusk. The Pfeifers determined to join in the venture and in the fall of 1908, Mr. Pfeifer and Dr. Atkinson came to Jireh and filed on homesteads, remaining long enough to build a three room shack on the Atkinson filing. Returning to Indiana before winter, they planned to move to Wyoming the following spring. The Pfeifers loaded an immigrant car with farm machinery and household belongings and arrived at the new station on the C. & N. W. Railway on April 1, 1909. They went to the shack built the previous year, being the first of those families to arrive. Within the next few weeks these families of 14 or 15 persons lived in the shack until homes could be erected. Mr. Pfeifer taught at the college and in rural Niobrara County schools.

Two children, Norma Clarice and Gerald Lavonne, were born in Indiana, and Charles Arden was born after the family came to Wyoming. A goodly portion of her years was spent on the homestead and on a farm acquired in 1916. For a few years they lived in Lusk, at which time Mr. Pfeifer was County Superintendent of Niobrara County and for a few years at Laramie and Douglas. Charles Pfeifer died in 1955 and Mrs. Pfeifer and son Arden operated the farm in the Jireh area until his accidental death in 1955.

Since that time Mrs. Pfeifer continued to spend considerable time with her son Lavonne, either on the ranch or in Lusk, and in later years spent much time with her daughter, Mrs. Herbert Lacy and family, at Thompson Falls, Mont.

After considerable sickness she returned in May of 1971 to Wyoming and since that time has lived in the Paradise Valley Home at Casper.

All her life she was interested in her home and family and also active in her church, serving in many capacities of religious life and in community activities.

She is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Herbert Lacy, Thompson Fall, Mont.; son Lavonne of Lusk; grandchildren, Mrs. Eileen Garrison, Glenn Lacy and Wayne Lacy of Thompson Falls and Charles Pfeifer and Gerald Pfeifer both of California. There are ten great-grandchildren.

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