JOHN W. RHYMER

McCLURE, Ill. Funeral service for John William Rhymer of McClure will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Ford and Sons Sprigg Street Chapel in Cape Girardeau, Mo. The Revs. Greg Morrison, Terry Burchyett and Art Kelley will officiate. Burial will be in Lindsey Cemetery here.

Friends may call at the funeral home from 4-8 p.m. Friday.

Rhymer, 78 years old, died Wednesday, Jan. 23, 1991, at the Lutheran Home.

He was born Oct. 14, 1912, at McClure, son of John William and Mary Evelyn Colyer Rhymer. His father died before he was born, and his mother later married A.C. Cook.

Rhymer and the former Jessie Reavis were married July 15, 1933, in Cairo.

He was a clerk with Illinois Central Railroad 35 years, retiring in 1975. He also farmed in McClure. He had been a volunteer at the information desk at St. Francis Medical Center from August 1975 until he recently became ill.

Rhymer managed McClure baseball teams in the 1940s and '50s, and was a registered umpire for Kitty League baseball, a professional minor league. He was a 32nd Degree Mason at Jonesboro Masonic Lodge, member of Woodman of the World, and past president of Farm Bureau.

Survivors include his wife; three sisters, Beulah Waddell of McClure, Sarah Kerr of Poplar Bluff, Virginia Norman of Ketchikan, Alaska, and a brother-in-law, Cloyd Reavis of Cape.

He was preceded in death by a daughter, Marilyn Y. Donlow, in January 1988.