Sharon Porter, 77, of Burwell, Nebraska died July 26, 2022 at the Grand Island Regional Medical Center in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at the Burwell Baptist Church in Burwell. Burial will be in Cottonwood Cemetery in Burwell. Pastor Joel Wentworth will officiate. Visitation will be Monday, August 1, 2022 from 5 – 7 p.m. at Hitchcock Funeral Home in Burwell. Memorials are suggested to the Community Memorial Health Center.
Sharon May Benton Porter was born September 13,1944 in Hermans Maternity Home in Burwell, Nebraska to Donald and Alta (Johnson) Benton. She joined an older sister Glenice. They were raised on the Benton ranch in southern Holt County where Donald raised Black Angus cattle. She attended grade school at District 226 in Holt County thru the 8th grade. Sharon and Glenice often rode horse back the three miles to school. In 1958 the family moved into northern Garfield County. Sharon attended Burwell High School where she graduated in 1962. She boarded in town during the school week.
After high school Sharon worked for various ladies in the area doing house work after they had delivered babies. She also painted several homes.
She met Wally Porter on a blind date to the Burwell Rodeo in 1964. They were married at Cedar Creek Berean Church on June 6, 1965. They made their home in Grand Island. Sharon babysat in two different homes until the birth of their first daughter, Rhonda Sue, in 1967 when she began to babysit at home.
The family moved to the Benton ranch after Sharon’s father passed away in January 1970. Two more daughters joined the family; Monica Rose in 1973, and Zonna Marie in 1977. To add to the excitement Sharon started babysitting for two families in the fall of 1977 and Spring of 1978. She babysat until the family moved to town in 1987.
Sharon started as a CNA at Community Memorial Health Center in 1990. She earned her Med Aid license in 1992 and continued to work there until she retired in 2018. Twelve of those years she worked in the memory care wing. She dearly loved the residents or her “friends” as she called them. After retiring she continued to volunteer at CMHC until the COVID 19 pandemic of 2020.
Sharon was proud of her heritage as a granddaughter of Myron Benton, the co-founder of The Cedar Creek Church. She loved to sing, especially the old hymns. She was always a country girl who loved black cattle and the smell of newly mown hay.
Sharon was a charter member of the Burwell Baptist Church and served in the AWANA Cubbies program for several years. Sharon was preceded in death by her parents, sister Glenice and one grandson, Joshua. She is survived by her husband, Wally, daughters Rhonda (Troy) Dowling of Hampton, NE, Monica (Philip) Tidyman of Stromsburg, and Zonna (Dustin) Betz of Columbus, grandchildren Rachel (David) Gifford, Caleb, Bethany, Jesse, and Dani Dowling; Daniel, Aaron, and Benjamin (Kenna) Tidyman; Aliyah, Mason, and Sawyer Betz; and one great grandson, Donnie Gifford.
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