ESTHER WHEELIS

DEXTER, Mo. -- Funeral for Esther Irene Wheelis of Dexter will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at Watkins and Sons Funeral Home. The Revs. Walter Spence and James Hook will officiate. Burial will be in Garden of Memories Cemetery at Sikeston, Mo.

Friends may call at the funeral home from 5-8 p.m. today.

Wheelis, 82, died Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001, at her home.

She was born Feb. 8, 1918, at Naylor, Mo., daughter of R.L. and Rosie Lilly Bishop. She and the Rev. Clyde Wheelis were married March 16, 1934. He died Sept. 19, 1990.

Wheelis lived in Sikeston 20 years, moving to Dexter in 1983. She attended First United Pentecostal Church.

Survivors include three daughters, Katherine Stewart and Sandra Davidson of Sikeston, Donna Hale of Bloomfield, Mo.; five sons, Hershel Wheelis of Bloomfield, William and Ronald Wheelis of Houston, Texas, Jack Wheelis of Augusta, S.C., and Dale Wheelis of Louisiana.

Also surviving are three brothers, Everett Bishop of Dexter, Bob Bishop of Jackson, Tenn., Wayne Bishop of Turlock, Calif.; four sisters, Lovie Wallen of Myrtle Beach, S.C., Olene Miller of Poplar Bluff, Mo., Ruth Gunn and Jeanette Curtis of St. Louis; 27 grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by two daughters and three sisters.