Obituary: Mary McDonald

A funeral for Mary Evelyne Armstrong McDonald, 92, will be at 9 a.m. April 30, at Walton's Funeral Home.

Mrs. McDonald died April 16, 2003. She was born Sept. 10, 1910, in Colorado to John Edwin and Ida Evelyne Hoflund Baldwin, one of 10 children.

She graduated from Wellington High School and began her long musical career studying piano with Matty Lou Miller, the mother of band leader Glenn Miller.

She married Homer Francis Armstrong in 1931, and they moved to Fallon. In Lahontan Valley, they became market farmers.

The family moved to Hawthorne in 1952, where she taught piano and organ and played for weddings, in churches and in funeral homes, including Walton's. She was an organist in her husband's Baptist ministry until his death in 1966. She owned and operated Armstrong's Floristry and Plant Nursery.

She was married to the Rev. Charles Venable from 1969 until his death in 1971.

She moved to Carson City in 1972 and continued as pianist and organist in churches and at public events. She learned sign language to communicate with the deaf. She was Nevada Mother of the Year in 1971, received the Sertoma Club's award for Service to Mankind in 1973, and is a past president of the Carson City Chapter of the the American Association of Retired Persons.

She married William McDonald, a retired accountant, in Carson City. They were together until his death in 1993. She married Roy Parmenter in 1995, and they divorced in 1998.

She was preceded in death by seven of her 10 children.

Among her survivors are her children Carolyn Kay Armstrong of Napa, Calif.,

Alice Emily Williams of Carson City and Robert Earl Armstrong of Cambridge, England; 26 grandchildren; 52 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

Burial will be at 2 p.m. April 30 at the Hawthorne Cemetery.

Walton's Chapel of the Valley is in charge of arrangements.