Sister Nancy Cowart Willis hospitalized

There will be a memorial service for Monongah High graduate Duane Cowart in Grafton National Cemetery on July 3. Duane passed away in May.

Duane’s sister, Nancy Cowart Willis, is in Clarksburg’s United Hospital Center, part of WVU Medicine, with pneumonia.

Duane’s family and friends will meet at the Domico Funeral Home at 414 Gaston Avenue in Fairmont at 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 3 to drive in a funeral procession to Grafton National Cemetery to have the memorial service.

 

Nancy is in Clarksburg United Hospital Center, which is part of WVU Medicine.

The National Cemetery is at 431 Walnut Street in Grafton. It started as a burial site for Union soldiers in 1867. There are 1,252 Union soliders buried there. That includes the body of Thornesberry Bailey Brown, thought to be the first Union casualty of the Civil War. He was killed in 1861.

Grafton National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Henry Duane Cowart’s parents were Florence Vellora Harris Cowart, another Monongah High grad, and Henry Cowart, who was born in Roxie, Mississippi and died in McCall Creek, Mississippi.

Duane’s siblings are:

Joyce Cowart Davis Peck, Class of 1966, who lives in Palm Bay, Florida with husband Perry Peck, originally from Myersdale, Pennsylania.  Her son lives in Alliance, Ohio.

Alma Lou Cowart Batson Allen, Class of 1963.

Nancy Jane Cowart Willis, Class of 1969, cafe manager at the Monongah High School for 26 years. Nancy lives in Worthington with husband Larry Willis. Linda Nottingham Willis, Class of 1964, was a majorette and class officer at Monongah High.

Carol Ensminger.

Warren Ray Cowart, Class of 1967.

They all went to Monongah High along with their mother, Florence, and Florence's siblings.

Joyce has a son in Alliance, Ohio, about 25 miles from my Tallmadge home. Joyce, who competes in the National Quartet Competition (barbershop for women), is among the legion of Dr. Barr babies born in Worthington.

Palm Bay is in Brevard County and not far from Melbourne, where Bob Cottrill, Class of 1951, and Jim Wright, Class of 1957, live. So did the late Jim Weaver, Class of 1948, who was a schoolteacher in Brevard County for 30 years.

In 2017 Joyce drove to Macon, Georgia for a night and then continued to Dayton, Tennessee to avoid Hurricane Irma.

Joyce’s previous husbands were Ivan Gene Lanham and Henry Hollis Davis Sr., who passed away within 7 days of each other in July 2018.

The monthly get-togethers in Worthington included David Willis, Class of 1961; Edward Burley, Class of 1962, widower of Katherine Ely Burley; Roy “Jaybird” Murphy, Class of 1966; Joe McCullough, Class of 1962; Clifford Morgan, Class of 1961; Harold Maze, Class of 1961; Wilbur Smith, Class of 1960; and Howard Shuttlesworth Jr., Class of 1972.