HELEN LOUISE (TENNISON) NICKLAS

Helen Louise (Tennison) Nicklas, 95, of Verona passed away on Feb. 25, 2024. She was born on April 9, 1928, in Monett, the eldest of five children born to Ella and Lowell Tennison.
She married Charles Nicklas on Sept. 29, 1946 and they were happily married for 77 years.  The couple moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in California during World War II, where they raised their two children and she worked as a teacher’s aide at a school for the developmentally disabled.
The couple moved back to Missouri to the family farm in Verona in 1974 and opened Charley’s Shoe Shop in Aurora. She was a member of Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church.
She is survived by her daughter-in-law, Debra Nicklas; daughter, Alvina Grossi; 11 grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Charles Nicklas; her siblings, James Tennison, Barbara Daniels, Roberta Turgeon and George Tennison; and her two sons, James Richard and Gerald Lee Nicklas.
Graveside services were held on Friday, March 1, at the King’s Prairie Cemetery in Monett.