Obituary Record

Margaretha (Wickstrom) Byrmo
Died on 7/13/2008

None

Byrmo, Margaretha (Wickstrom), 90

Died 13 July 2008

Published in Enterprise on 1 August 2008

Margaretha Byrmo, 90, of Jonkoping, Sweden, died Sunday, July 13, 2008 in Jonkoping.

Funeral services were Friday, July 18 in Jonkoping.

Margaretha Wickstrom was born to Swedish parents, Gideon and Esther Wickstrom, in Barbarton, South Africa on April 15, 1918. She spent her high school years in Sweden, later attending Stockholm's Swedish Red Cross Nursing School, graduating with her RN in 1943.

She then returned to South Africa as a single missionary nurse in 1945, under the Swedish Alliance Mission. Later that year, she married Martin Byrmo, also a Swedish missionary to South Africa.

Mrs. Byrmo studied midwifery in Pretoria, South Africa, and she used her medical skills to help thousands of South African black nationals.

In 1961, she and her husband began a pioneer mission ministry in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which was then Southern Rhodesia, where Mrs. Byrmo continued to care for many Rhodesians using her medical expertise. She delivered many babies, worked on various wards at the Bulawayo General Hospital, and was involved in the Rhodesian Nurses Christian Fellowship.

Upon retirement in 1978, Mr. and Mr. Byrmo returned to Jonkoping, Sweden.

She is survived by three daughters, Ann-Britt Smazik of Charlotte, N.C., Evelyne Byrmo of Stockholm, Sweden and Karin Oldberg of Blair; one son, Danial Byrmo of Johannesbureg, South Africa; and six grandchildren.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Martin, and a sister, Ruth.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~

Printed in the Washington County Enterprise on 8/1/2008


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