In Memory of Myrle M. Nielsen

Myrle Maxine Hicks Nielsen was born February 5, 1928 to William and Edith (Mitchell) Hicks in rural Monona County.  She was raised on a farm in Crawford County during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl and had memories of hand harvesting corn and walking to country school.

After graduating at the top of her class from Dunlap High School in 1945, she moved to Omaha.  Scoring well on an aptitude test, she was employed by the Union Pacific Railroad in payroll and helped to investigate a ticket scam.

Thanks to the encouragement of her aunt Alice, she enrolled in Drake University in 1946.  Those were exciting times with many GI’s attending after WWII.  She became a life-long Bulldogs fan and while there, she took a short course on birds from Iowa’s bird lady, Gladys Black.  

After graduating with her 2-year teaching degree, her first teaching job was at Redfield, Iowa.  She moved to Battle Creek, IA where she taught 5^th grade.  There she met Martin Nielsen and they were married in 1950. Myrle took a break from teaching to raise three daughters and help her husband farm.  She started teaching again in 1965 at Odebolt-Arthur.  She led her 6^th grade students to championships in the State Math Bee several times.

While teaching and raising her children, she completed her Bachelors degree in 1974 from USD, Vermillion. 

After retirement from teaching in 1990, she traveled across the US and Canada, mostly with ElderHostel groups. Her adventures included whale watching, white-water rafting, riding a horse drawn carriage in New Orleans, and a hot-air balloon ride.  She developed a love of bird watching, both while traveling and in her own backyard.  She was a member of the Iowa Ornithologists Union and participated in Christmas Bird Counts and Spring Migratory Counts.

She owned two different Ford Mustangs and loved to drive fast. She was a member of the Eastern Star, served on the Battle Creek City Council, the BC-IG Scholarship Committee and was a volunteer at DeSoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge.  She loved her church, bible study, watching the Cubs play baseball, reading, doing crossword puzzles and sharing the occasional dirty joke.

She was a wonderful mother to her children, a loyal friend, and will be greatly missed.  Her parents, husband, Martin, and brother Orville Hicks preceded her in death.  She is survived by her daughters, Susan Nielsen of Storm Lake, IA; Linda (John) Frederick of Rolla, MO; Nancy (Rollin) Hunsicker of Lake Geneva, WI; brother, Gerald Hicks of Dunlap, IA; her brothers-in-law Peter and Einar Nielsen; sisters-in-law Harriet Nielsen, Olga Dominick and Ila Hicks.