Orville J. Nelson, age 93, passed away on Friday, March 1, 2019, at his home, after a stroke on February 13 ^th which took away the ability to swallow and affected his left side, and 8 days after going on hospice on Feb 21 ^st without food or liquid  He was born in section 29 in the Town of Ellington on November 30, 1925, oldest child of  Matthew E. and Jennie Margaret (Laird) Nelson. He was the first grandson of Martin and Elida ( Hansen) Nelson and the first grandchild of James Hull Laird and Eliza (Gillespie) Laird.  He was born and died in the same house in which he lived his entire life and the same house in which his mother, Jennie, was born July 17, 1895. He walked 1 ¼ miles to the Pleasant Vale / Manley one-room school, Town of Ellington School District No.1,  for all 8 grades. He rode his bicycle to Hortonville High for the freshman year in 1939 when the weather allowed, but the next year Shiocton District contracted with George Jones ( Jiggy Jones) to operate a school bus which went right past the farm and Shiocton had an agricultural course.  Orville switched to Shiocton High for the sophomore year and graduated in the Shiocton class of 1943.  During WWII gas rationing caused the bus to shorten the route, so he had to walk a mile to the bus. In high school, he was active in the FFA and boxing.

Orville had an agriculture deferment from the draft during the war.  He worked helping his dad and other farmers:  Elmer Root and  Alfred  Handschke.  After the war, he went to South and North Dakota to thresh wheat with Tony Bohman, Bill Bohman, and Ed Bohman for several years.; They left for South Dakota after finishing threshing oats at home and returned home to fill silo. They always worked for the same farmers at Sisseton, S.D. the Quamen brothers: Norman, Palmer, and Ray, and others just inside North Dakota.

Orville played first base for the Stephensville ball team during and after the war.

Orville milked a herd of sixty Guernsey cows, all on the test, in the early 1950s.

Orville met Lila at a square dance at the YWCA in Neenah when his sister Arlo recruited him to go to the dance; Orville and Lila were married at the Methodist Church in Manhattan Ill on Lila's grandmother's,  Maggie C Redden's, 81 ^st birthday Sunday, February 24, 1952. They spent 67 years together until Lila's death on Feb 22, 2019, just two days short of their 67 ^th anniversary.

In June 1955 the Outagamie County, Selective Service Draft Appeal Board classified Orville as 1-A, so he sold his cows and went to what is now the UW –Fox Valley while waiting to be called up.  There he studied drafting and math and when he enquired on when he would be inducted the reply was: "We can't take you. You are 30 years old."  He then worked in the engineering department at the FWD Corp in Clintonville from April 1956 and did a performance test on the trucks for military orders, and other engineering work.  He left FWD and worked in the engineering department at Appleton Machine in Appleton before it became Valmet where he often did the calculations and checked the drawings and did design work on supercalenders.  He became a project engineer at Badger Northland in Kaukauna with responsibility for the manure equipment line: manure spreaders, manure tanks, manure injectors, manure pumps, barn cleaners, etc. and would bring the prototypes home to try out on his own farm. He worked for Badger for 25 years and retired.  He was an active member of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers and was chairman of the Tractor Committee which worked on setting standards and requirements for agricultural tractors in the U.S.  He also served on other ASAE committees. In 1989 he received the ASAE's Wisconsin Section Engineer of the Year Award for outstanding contributions to the profession. Orville and Lila traveled many highway miles to get to the ASAE committee meetings held around the country.  He farmed part-time for all the years before retirement and after he retired he farmed full time with his son James.

Orville was active in the community. He served as the Town of Ellington town board chairman for 36 years until 2011. Emmett Root had served as town board chairman for 25 years prior to Orville. Orville was the secretary for the Outagamie County Towns Association for many of those years.  He was the treasurer of the Hortonville / Hortonia/ Ellington Volunteer Fire Department before Ellington formed a separate fire department.  Orville served on the Town's Planning Commission from its beginning until he was no longer able, and on the Town's Park Committee from its beginning. Orville was president of the Ellington Union Cemetery Association for many years.  In the 1960's he and Lila were active Outagamie County Farm Bureau members.  In 1954 Orville was chairman of the Outagamie County Farm Bureau and served on several committees requiring trips to Madison while milking 60 Guernsey cows twice a day all on the test.

Orville was an active member of the Stephensville Methodist Church where he and Lila were the youth group leaders for the Stephensville and Medina Methodist churches in the early 1950s. Orville taught the high school Sunday school class at Stephensville for many years and often served as the lay leader.  After the Stephensville church closed in 1966 he taught the high school Sunday school class at Center Emmanual UM Church. He served as the building committee chairman for Faith Community UM Church in Greenville when it was built in 1969. There he taught an adult Sunday School class for about 40 years until he was no longer able. He served as a lay leader, worked on many church committees, and chairman of the pastor-parish relations committee.

Orville and Lila enjoyed square dancing at Bean City in the 1950s and being members of the Appleton Masonic Dance Club in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.  In the 1950's he enjoyed pheasant hunting in South Dakota at Quammen's and hunting on his farm in the 1950s through 1970s.

Orville was most happy when he was working with his two sons together on any farm task either repairing or constructing the buildings, sawing and skidding logs in the woods,  tilling or planting in the fields, or repairing machinery.  Orville was always active at accomplishing some task and then onto the next task. He never stopped working and wanted to make good use of every minute.

He is survived by his sons, Robert and James, two nieces and two nephews: Judy Abendschein (Michael Mc Neese), (Mississippi), Shaleen Melvin (Wyoming), and Michael Avants (Wyoming), and Sean (Susan) Avants, (Wyoming).

He was preceded in death by his wife Lila by 7 days, on Feb 22, 2019. Their 67 ^th wedding anniversary was on Sunday, Feb 24, 2019.

Preceded in death by his parents: Matthew E Nelson, April 2, 1980, and Jennie Laird Nelson, September 10, 1992, and by his sisters and their husbands:  Arlo (Nelson) (Abendschein) Sell on Oct 1, 2016, and John Abendschein, (Oct 1960) and Everett Sell ( Aug 1993), Ruth (Nelson) Avants on April 14, 2015, and Robert Avants.

He is survived by cousins and spouses on his father's side:  David Nelson, Jean ( Robert) Kuschel, Nancy (Forrest) Goodrum, Linda Fleming, Wayne Nelson.

He was proceeded in death by cousins and their spouses on his father's side:   Arlene ( Vic) Johnson, Betty ( Wayne) Palmer, Dick Nelson.

He is survived by cousins on his mother's side: Doris Larson, Ray ( Karen) Laird, Dan ( Carol)  Laird, Lee Laird, James Laird.

He was proceeded in death by uncles and aunts on his father's side:

Sigurd and Gladys Nelson, Nander and Dorey and Barbara Nelson, Art and Lilly Nelson, Manning and Margaret Nelson, Lee and Verna Nelson.

Proceeded in death by Uncles and Aunt  on his mother's side:

Clifford Laird and Violet ( Laird) Milbauer, Charles Milbauer.

Funeral services for Orville & Lila will be held on Saturday, March 9, 2019, at 11:00 a.m. at the Faith Community United Methodist Church in Greenville with Rev. Lisotwel Ayensu-Mensah and Rev. David Farina officiating.  Visitation will be held at the CHURCH on Friday from 4-7 p.m. and also on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. until the time of service. Lunch follows the service. Burial will be in the Ellington Union Cemetery in the spring.

ADDENDUM:

The following was added by his son, Robert, in Orville's funeral service on Saturday, March 9, 2019:

Both Orville and Lila had some near misses in childhood which could easily have cut their lives short. When Orville was about 5 or 6 years old he and his dad were at the Buchman feed mill in Hortonville on a Saturday morning.  It was located by the millpond dam in Hortonville where the brick municipal building is now.  His dad, Matt, was in the mill office. Orville had just come into the office and closed the door when the mill blew up and the planks went flying past the office door window. The mill was running with a cracked burr and it was the depression so there was not much money for repairs. ( It was thought that as long as not loaded too quickly it would work fine). Mill operator was killed in the blast.

After an ice storm Orville and Les Schmidt, who was in the same high school class, got off the school bus just west of Black Creek with their ice skates and skated west on Hwy 54 to Shiocton passing every car on the road. They arrived at Shiocton High School before the bus did.  The bus had to follow a different route.

When Orville was a sophomore at Shiocton he was in the FFA extemporaneous speech regional contest at Clintonville. ( He rode there in the principal's, Monroe Manley's,  Studebaker Commander.) His speech was on How Tractors Would Replace Horses.  The judges gave high marks on the delivery and organization of his extemporaneous speech, but in the end, the judges said: " Now, We all know that tractors will never replace horses".  Orville's last horse was named Chief bought from Charlie Greinert about 1942. At last count, Orville had no horses, and about twenty tractors. It goes to show that conventional wisdom is not always right.

END OF EULOGY AT FUNERAL SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019