Ardath Grey Nowotny

A memorial service is 3 p.m. Saturday at Carson Valley United Methodist Church in Gardnerville for Ardath Grey Nowotny, 84, who died May 2, 2009, surrounded by her daughters.

Born the youngest of eight children on June 28, 1924, in Marietta, Ohio, to George and Lucy Ziegler, she graduated from Central High School in Columbus, Ohio. While attending Bliss College, she was recruited by the U.S. Air Force to learn about IBM machines. After training, she was stationed at Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio, then Oakland California Pacific Overseas Air Service command, where she met her future husband.

After World War II, she returned to Ohio, where she worked in industrial mobilization at the Columbus Depot. She married Arnold Nowotny of New Braunfels, Texas, in 1950. The couple was transferred to Elko and then to Ely. In 1958, Mr. Nowotny took over the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service office in Yerington.

While living in Yerington, Mrs. Nowotny was chairwoman of the Mason Valley Neighborhood Girl Scouts, an officer in the Eastern Star, associate mother advisor to the Rainbow Girls, cradle supervisor of the Methodist Church, and sang in the church choir and community chorus.

The couple lived in Yerington until 1967, when they were sent to Maui, Hawaii, and then to Phoenix where Mrs. Nowotny was employed by Broadway Southwest department store and was treasurer of the Kachina Pony Club.

She retired in 1981 and the couple returned to Carson Valley. Mrs. Nowotny served as a volunteer docent in the Genoa Courthouse Museum for eight years.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, four sisters and three brothers.

She is survived by daughters Rebecca (John) Kelley of Gardnerville, Belinda (Randy) Lewis of Phoenix, Danni (David) VandeBerg and Cherri (Andy) Epstein of Las Vegas; seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.