Lois Maxine Wade

Lois Maxine Wade died peacefully on the morning of July 13, 2020, at her home in Willows with her youngest son at her side. She has passed beyond this world of tears and is now welcomed into Heaven. She was born, Lois Maxine Jones, to Hume and Adeline Jones, in Marquette county, Wisconsin, on March 13, 1927, and moved to Pomona California at the age of two. She was the second of three children, with an older brother and younger sister, both now deceased. Lois started working in Sunday School in her early teens, with Elisabeth Fate, whom she considered to be “one of the finest teachers she ever knew”. She considered the activities and strategies she learned there to be more valuable and practical than those from her later college education classes. She moved to Northern California after graduating from La Vern College in 1948 and was a loved kindergarten and substitute teacher in the Willows school system, for the next 50 years. She also taught Sunday School at the local Church of the Nazarene, for 60 years. She began her teaching career at the two-room country schoolhouse, moved into town and located just west of the present public pool, in Sycamore Park. Her first-year students were not typical, 10 of her students were considered “pre-first” and stayed after class for first grade work. She taught double kindergarten sessions for most of her career, and for many years she had non- English speaking students in her class. By the time they moved on to the first grade they could speak English well enough to be successful. She felt extremely fortunate that for all those years her children and grandchildren were understanding and supportive of her kindergarten work. Whenever they needed an explanation for the snakes, and worms, and butterfly larvae she wanted, they would just tell their friends, “Mom’s a Kindergarten teacher”. She enjoyed seeing and sometimes teaching the children and grandchildren of former students, to have her own children and grandchildren go through the Willows school system, and keeping in contact with the fine teachers still there. She married Neale Dixon Wade in December of 1948, who passed in 2014, and is survived by her 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and 10 great grandchildren. They all remember the great vacations she took them on, to exciting places along the coast. No services are planned at this time. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you donate to your church, or your favorite charity. To send a flower arrangement or to plant trees in memory of Lois Maxine Wade, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.