Margaret “Ardath” Kusek, 98, of Burwell, Nebraska died March 1, 2020 at the Boone County Health Center in Albion, Nebraska.
Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 7, 2020 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Burwell. Burial will be in Cottonwood Cemetery in Burwell. Fr. Scott Harter and Fr. Mark Maresh will officiate. Visitation will be Friday from 4 – 6 p.m. at the church, with a Rosary at 6 p.m. Memorials are suggested to Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Mid Nebraska Individual Services or the Burwell Senior Center. Hitchcock Funeral Home in Burwell is in charge of arrangements.
Margaret Ardath Alloway was born May 10, 1921, during a thunderstorm in Fillmore, Missouri to Flora L (McGill) Alloway and James Lyle Alloway. The family moved to Burwell in 1922.
Ardath graduated from Burwell Public School with the Class of 1938. She taught in rural schools for three years before going to St. Joseph, Missouri where she enrolled in Missouri’s Methodist Hospital School of Nursing, graduating in 1944. She then joined Army Nurse Corps. She was among the group of Nurses on the Hospital Ship “Marigold” destined for the Philippines, that reached the Island of Leyte the day that the United States bombed Japan.
After discharge from the service she returned to Burwell and married Henry Kusek of rural Burwell on August 20, 1946 in Elyria, Nebraska. She was employed by the Burwell Hospital as a staff nurse becoming the Director of Nursing after a period of being Temporary Administrator. She continued a career of nursing until retirement in 1985.
The Kusek’s became parents of eight children, Ardath “Betsy”, Vicki, Nancy, Jane, Penelope “Penny”, Anthony “Tony”, Mary, and Henry “Hank”.
She was a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Burwell, Board of Burwell Senior Citizens Center, D.A.R., Theaseurean Writers Club, American Legion, Life member of V.F.W., past commander of V.F.W.
Ardath is survived by six children; Betsy Kusek of Ord, Nebraska, Vicki and Lynn Bridgman of Burwell, Nebraska, Nancy and Rich Psota of St. Paul, Nebraska, Jane and Keith Vore of Burwell, Nebraska, Penny and Larry Wells of Guernsey, Wyoming, Dr. Tony and Carol Kusek of Albion, Nebraska a son-in-law, Rock and Cindy Bates of Purcell, Oklahoma, and a brother Lyle and Ruth Alloway of Burwell, Nebraska and nineteen grandchildren, thirty-eight great-grandchildren and two great great-grandchildren.
Ardath was preceded in death by her husband Henry S. Kusek, her parents, a sister Arlene McClintic, three brothers, Clarence as an infant, and Robert and Norval Alloway, a daughter, Mary Kusek Bates, a son, Hank Kusek and a grandson Ty Bridgman.
