Mary L. (Nagle) Tice

Mary Lois Tice, 93, of Rochester, Minnesota, passed peacefully away on Dec. 30, 2019 at Samaritan Bethany Home on Eight in Rochester.

Public graveside services for Mary Tice will be held at 10:00 AM on Saturday, June 13, 2020 at Evergreen Cemetery in Clarion, Iowa, with Pastor Mark Young officiating.

Those who attend will be asked to follow social distancing guidelines.

Mary was born Oct. 11, 1926, in Clarion, Iowa, to Burr and Mary Nagle where she lived until moving her junior and senior years of high school to Waterloo, Iowa, graduating from West Waterloo High School.

Mary attended A.I.B. in Des Moines, Iowa, and went on to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, where she worked from the fall of 1944 to the fall of 1948. She also worked many years as a nurse’s aide at the hospital in Clarion.

On January 8, 1949, Mary married Donald Tice in Clarion.  They lived and farmed the family farm near Lake Cornelia until Don retired in the Spring of 2006 and they moved into Clarion. Mary moved to an assisted living center in Rochester, January of 2018 to be near her daughter.

 During her time at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Mary was secretary to the man responsible for coordinating the redesign of the bomb bay in the B29 that would carry the atomic bomb. Everything was in code so she was unaware of what she was working on until the morning after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She and one other secretary held the highest security clearance possible as they were responsible for the multiple combination safes holding information.

Mary was a very active member of the Clarion Church of Christ over the years and loved hearing from her church family after moving to Rochester.  She was also a member of Eastern Star.

Mary is survived by her son, Greg of Chicago, Illinois; daughter Laurel (Larry) Kleppe of Rochester; three granddaughters, Daphne (Daniel) Capek, Anna (Trent) Hill, and Allie Kleppe (fiancé Drew Brandt); and one great-grandchild.

She was preceded in death by her parents and brothers, William Nagle and Burr Nagle Jr., and her husband Don.

Memorials to the Clarion Church of Christ are preferred in lieu of flowers.