Opal Roe

Opal Gray Roe, 94, formerly of Aledo, died Thursday, July 9, 2015 at Avonlea Cottage, Milan.  Funeral services will be held at 2:00 p.m. Monday, July 13th, at the Hamlet-Perryton Presbyterian Church, rural Reynolds.  Rev. Harold Losey will officiate.  Burial will be at the Hamlet Cemetery.  Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the church.  Memorials may be to the Hamlet-Perryton Presbyterian Church.  Stackhouse-Moore Funeral Services, Cambridge, is assisting the family with the arrangements.

Opal Eileen Stackhouse was born September 18, 1920 in Burns Township, Henry County, Illinois, the daughter of Clyde H. and Birdie E. Murray Stackhouse.  She attended the rural school in Burns Township and graduated from Cambridge High School in 1937.  She then went to Brown’s Business College in Galesburg.  A job opened at the Mercer County Farm Bureau, and Opal began working there when she was 17 years old.  While working in Aledo, she met Donald Marsh Gray.  They were married on February 17, 1940 in the Hamlet Church.  They loved to take long trips around the country pulling a camper that Donald had built.  Donald drowned in a boating accident on October 17, 1954.

Shortly thereafter, Opal went back to work at the Mercer County Farm Bureau and three years later decided to buy a house and move to Aledo.  In 1959, Opal changed jobs and became the bookkeeper for the Aledo Unit School District 201.  She retired from there in 1988.  Opal met Ken Roe at the “Col” Ballroom in Davenport, and they were married on July 25, 1971 in Aledo.  He passed away on November 24, 2000.  Opal was a member of the College Avenue Presbyterian Church and has been a member of the Mercer County Homemakers Extension for over 60 years.  She had been very active in Aledo’s Business and Professional Women.  Opal enjoyed dancing and playing cards.

Those surviving are two sons and daughters-in-law, Charles and Linda Gray, Kennedale, Texas, James and Beverly Gray, rural Aledo, four grandchildren, Cindy (Peter) Seesselberg, Debbie (Curtis) Leffelman, Trudy (Mike) Hoehn, and Don (Kathy) Gray.  Also surviving are nine great grandchildren, Charlie and Katelin Seesselberg, Noah and Eli Leffelman, Crystal Gray, Johnathan Hoehn, and Matthew, Megan, and Mason Gray.  Her parents, her two husbands, a brother, Earl Stackhouse, and an infant brother preceded her in death.