GERALDINE STEWART, 98

Graveside services were held Monday, June 29 at the Blair Cemetery for 98-year-old Geraldine Stewart, who died June 26, 1992 at Crowell Memorial Home in Blair.

Geraldine Kemp Stewart was born June 18, 1894 in Blair to Samuel and Annie Patrick Stewart. She graduated from Blair High School in 1911.

On October 12, 1916, she married Frank Stewart in Olathe, Kansas.

She had a love for music, playing and teaching the piano and violin. As a fill-in playing piano (her main instrument along with the violin), Mrs. Stewart was approached by a lady in Herman asking her if she wanted to be in the Chautauqua touring the U.S. This led her to try-outs in Chicago.

She was selected to lead an eight member, all-girl orchestra known as the “Military Girls” because of the military uniforms they wore. The group toured the U.S. playing in every state in the union. The group was requested by the government to play for the servicemen in the Panama Canal region for six weeks and they also entertained in South America.

The group never played in Blair but did play the Orpheum Theatre in Omaha on one occasion.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Frank; one son, Meredith (Bill); sisters, Lucille Dickey and Gladys Wiist and one brother Meredith Kemp.

She is survived by one niece, (Mrs. J. Russell) Elizabeth Ann Plylar of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

Pallbearers for the service were George Campbell, Joe Gutschow, Jack Hatcher, Mary Weckmuller and Roy I. Anderson.

Campbell-Aman Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.

(With her middle name listed in the second paragraph as Kemp and a brother with last name Kemp, leads me to believe her maiden name was Kemp. Difficult to tell.)

(typed as printed in the newspaper. )