NORMA YOOS

NEVADA, Mo.- Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, at Ferry Funeral Home in Nevada, for Norma Louise (Pettibon) Yoos, 89, who died Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, after a brief illness. Steve Leatherman and Jared Dickey will officiate. A private family interment will follow in McKill Cemetery.

The family will receive friends from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to Solace House of the Ozarks, Missouri Department of Conservation, or your local library, in care of the funeral home.

You may view the obituary and send condolences online at www.ferryfuneralhome.com.

Survivors include her daughter, Norma Jean; a son, Lewis H. “Hank” and wife Michele; grandchildren, Sheena, Derrick and Jared Dickey and wife Amber and A. J. Yoos Verdusco; great-grandchildren, Keyton Dickey and Jordyn Dickey and many beloved nieces, nephews, cousins and their families near and far.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Gene Yoos; a son, David Yoos and two sisters, Margaret Leatherman and Beverly Davis.

Mrs. Yoos was born Dec. 20, 1934, in rural Deerfield, to Norman Lewis Pettibon and Lucille Anna (Pilcher) Pettibon.

She was a 1952 graduate of Nevada High School. After high school she worked at the Western Insurance Company in Ft. Scott, Kan. She married Ralph Eugene “Gene” Yoos on December 17, 1955. They worked together on their family farm in active partnership. They raised their three children on the farm: David Eugene, Norma Jean and Lewis Henry “Hank” Yoos.

Mrs. Yoos loved reading; her daily routine was reading her beloved newspapers: the Joplin Globe, Pittsburg Sun, Nevada Daily Mail, Fort Scott Tribute and Lamar Democrat. She always started with the comics and read all the articles local, national and international focusing on political, social and arts events in the four counties and two states she lived and worked in for most of her life. She was a lifelong Democrat, loved cooking, gardening, travel and staying connected with friends and family writing letters in her exquisite handwriting.

She enjoyed her friendly, peaceful neighborhood and the convenience of living in Joplin in the last few years of her life, claiming it was the first warm house she ever lived in after a lifetime of living in drafty farmhouses.