Mary Karen (Eid) Everson

Mary Karen (Eid) Everson went to be with our Lord in Heaven on Saturday, December 23, 2017 in Round Rock, Texas, near her family, after fighting a valiant 14 month battle with Cholangiocarcinoma (cancer of the bile ducts). Her journey took her to see some of the best doctors in the country for this disease at the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Seton Main Hospital in Austin, and Dr. Heyl from Cortez. Her family is grateful for all they did to help fight this terrible disease. Mary was born the 3rd of 6 children to George Arnold and Florence Margaret (Berge) Eid on December 7, 1950 in Whitehall, Wisconsin. She was raised on the family dairy farm in Hegge Coulee, just outside of Pigeon Falls, with 2 brothers and 3 sisters. In her teen years, she would drive the tractor pulling the hay wagon for her father during haying operations. She never had a problem maintaining a healthy tan in the summer, sitting on the tractor in the hot sun. She attended grades 1 through 8 at the Pigeon Falls School. She was the only girl in her class for the 1st 4 years. To this day the boys claim they all loved her and that she was their favorite girl. Mary rode the bus to Whitehall for high school, where, as a freshman, she met the future man in her life, Ron, in the high school band in 1964. There was something about that dark-haired, well-tanned (from days on the tractor seat), slender and friendly girl that attracted Ron from the start. Under the tutelage of the band director, Sheridan Johnson, Mary played the clarinet, and then moved to the contrabass clarinet where she shared the sheet music with Ron who played the tuba. Mary was also the Homecoming Queen during her senior year with her good friend, Roger Berg as King. After graduating from high school in 1969, Mary worked in food service at Tri-County Memorial Hospital in Whitehall for a short time before enrolling in St. Johns School of Nursing LPN Program in Red Wing, Minnesota. After passing her State Board Exam and receiving her license, she landed a job as an LPN in the new-born nursery in the hospital in Menomonie, Wisconsin, near Ron who was attending UW Stout in Menomonie at the time. Mary and Ron were married in the Pigeon Falls Evangelical Lutheran Church on July 14, 1973. Her honeymoon included driving across hot, brown, SW Kansas in her 1971 Mercury Comet GT with no air conditioning, pulling a Uhaul trailer on route to Rons construction job in Lamar, Colorado. Even the greens on the golf courses were brown. Mary worked as an LPN at the Nursing Home in Lamar. Rons construction jobs required frequent relocations and first took them to Boulder in 1974 for about a year and then Denver for about 3 years. In Denver, she worked as an LPN in the newborn nursery at Saint Anthonys Hospital. The next move was to Pueblo in 1977. Their home on St. Charles Mesa is where their black cat, Nosey, came into the picture. He was always considered to be the number one son. The next move was to Sweetwater, Texas in 1978. They moved to Cortez, Colorado in 1979, where Ron went to work for Nielsons, Inc. Mary began work as an LPN in the newborn nursery at Southwest Memorial Hospital, where she worked until her son, Christian Robert was born on May 27, 1981. At that time, she became a stay at home Mom, shouldering most of the child-rearing duties. Chris was never far from his mother. A familiar site was Mary mowing the lawn while carrying Chris in a backpack carrier, asleep, or preparing dinner the same way. In 1990, Mary went to work as a Teachers Aide at Kemper Elementary where Chris went to school. She continued at the school until she retired in 2016. Marys life was always about children. She was a wonderful mother to her son, worked in the newborn nursery taking care of babies and new moms, and then for many years taught reading with reading groups and reading interventions. She had a tremendous amount of patience and understanding and quite a few emotionally needy children found a soft heart in Mary and remembered her long after. Mary also played the piano for the Sunday School at Trinity Lutheran Church when Chris attended there. Mary loved reading and music, and loved to dance (she also liked to lead her dance partner). Mary was also an amateur belly dancer. It started with a class at the Y in Boulder in 1974 and laid dormant until she found a local belly dance troop in Montezuma County after Chris had left home. She enjoyed dancing with the troop and the friends that she made. Her friends made special performance for Mary in her back yard on Shimmy Mob Day in 2017. Skiing and hiking in Southwestern Colorado, Arizona, and Utah was always part of her life in Cortez. Even after Mary was diagnosed with cancer, she continued to visit national parks and hike as much as she could. Her last trip - to Bryce Canyon in September - was special. She never gave up, hiking one of the spectacular cliff-top trails for 1.5 miles, hiking to and stopping at every overlook to see it all. Mary was extremely proud of her son, Chris, and the man that he has become. He married Terese Molina in Austin in 2008. Their son, Levi, was born in 2014, and became the focus of Marys life. She had the Grandmas touch that could always quiet the newborn boy. Although she was disappointed that she wouldnt be around to dance at his wedding, she made the best of the time that she had with Levi. Mary is survived by her siblings, Robert (Nancy) Eid, Janet (David) Estenson, Gilbert (Tammy) Eid, Margaret (Brian) Humphreys, and Elizabeth (David) Gerard, her husband, Ronald Everson, our son, Christian, his wife, Terese, and their son, Levi George. Mary was preceded in death by her father and mother, George and Florence Eid. A Celebration of Life hosted by her siblings will be held in the Pigeon Falls, Wisc. area in the summer.