Margaret Wise

Margaret Wise of Center, formerly of rural Vandalia, passed away peacefully on Friday, February 11, 2021 at the age of 94. She was with loved ones when the Lord reached out to her.

A visitation celebrating the life of Geneva Margaret Flowers Wise will be held on Friday February 19, 2021 beginning at 1 p.m. followed by funeral services at 2 p.m. at the Bienhoff Funeral Home in Vandalia. Her grandson, Pastor Aaron Dowell will officiate with burial at Evergreen Memorial Gardens in Vandalia.

Geneva Margaret Flowers was born April 5, 1926 in Hannibal MO at the family home. The daughter of Henry Lewie and Laura Mabel Gunn Flowers, she was the sixth child born of their 13 children. Baptized in the Salt River by the Reverend Golden, she was a member of the Pleasant Grove Church.

At the age of 17 she married Daniel David Wise on January 15,1944 and they were married 62 years at the time of his death on August 13, 2006. They were blessed with eight children and their children's success in life were their proudest achievements and the untimely deaths of their sons, John and Don, were their deepest sorrow. Along with her husband, they provided their children with a good life. Margaret was a farm wife, working beside her husband when needed and raising chickens along with the kids, putting in a big garden, canning over 500 quarts of produce in one season, sewing dresses for the girls and even shirts for the boys, but her passion was quilting. Those who received one of her hand stitched and hand quilted quilts felt truly blessed. She also was very talented in embroidery. She made each of her forty six great-grandchildren an embroidered piece with their name and even taught a few of them how to hand quilt and embroidery. It must have taken a lot of patience to help those little hands to cut the material correctly and thread and rethread all those needles but I guess after raising her eight kids, by the time those eighteen grandkids were there, she had it down to a fine art.

For a few years she worked at Bobbie Brooks to supplement the farming income and enjoyed that and a few neighbors probably still remember her flying by on her way to work, as she assumed the speed limit was a suggestion, not a requirement.

Everybody went to Sunday dinner at grandma's house after church and there was always room enough for us all and with all the cousins playing outside making memories together. There are many tales to be told of our family camping adventures and some that are probably better left unsaid. I think this is what our family will remember as “the good ole days''.

Margaret will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by her remaining six children; Hazel Askey of Vandalia, Robert Wise and wife Connie of Perry, :June Williamson and husband Ed of Bowling Green, Linda Dowell of Bowling Green, Ken Wise of Center, and Kelly Wise of Willow Springs; her eighteen grandchildren, her forty-six great-grandchildren, her six great-great grandchildren and her siblings: Jay and Wanda Flowers of Hannibal, Jerry Flowers of Perry, and John and Goldie Flowers of Madisonville.

Our sorrow of Margaret’s death is soothed by the joy we know she found in the heavenly reunion with her husband Dan and her 2 sons, John and Don.

Also preceding her in death were her parents, her sons-in-law Floyd Dowell and Bob Askey; her siblings; Idell Benn, Frances Hawkinson, Everette Flowers, Howard Flowers, Juanita Mahod, Russell Flowers, Fern Miller, Delbert Flowers, and Arnold Flowers.

She would always tell us as we left, ‘I love you, I love you all” Her peaceful passing was her reward for a life well lived.