The funeral for Mary A. Nelson will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at Richards Funeral Home in New Madrid, Mo. The Rev. Raymond Oxford will officiate. Burial will be in Garden of Memories Cemetery at Sikeston, Mo.

Nelson, 84, died Friday, Oct. 18, 2002, at Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau.

She was born Oct. 28, 1917, in Livingston County, Ky., daughter of James Allen and Lura Marie Walton Blankenship. She and Mac M. Thompson were married in 1939. She and Raymond W. Nelson Jr. were married in 1973. He preceded her in death.

Nelson attended school in Gorham, Ill., and Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She later moved to Kewanee, Mo.

She worked in communications in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. She was a charter member of East Cape Baptist Church in East Cape Girardeau, Ill.

Survivors include a daughter, Marty Hunt of Leipers Fork, Tenn.; two sons, Steve Thompson of Huntsville, Texas, Stan Thompson of Jackson; a sister, Evelyn Pinnell of Sikeston; two brothers, Jay Blankenship of Kewanee, Ed Blankenship of Millington, Tenn.; several grandchildren, great-grandchildren and stepchildren.