OBITUARY

GJ Native Ardis Ryerson Brown, 85, Died June 30, 2009

Grand Junction native Ardis Ryerson Brown, 85, died June 30, 2009, at St. Mary’s Hospital, Rochester, Minn. Memorial services were held July 3 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson with interment in the Jefferson Cemetery. Ardis was a Jefferson resident.

Mary Ardis Ferguson was born Oct. 30, 1923, in Grand Junction, the daughter of W. D. “Spike” Ferguson and Irma Fisher Ferguson. Ardis graduated from Jefferson High School in 1941 and from Drake University in 1945.

Ardis married Howard Ryerson on Sept. 18, 1944, in Des Moines. They were the parents of four children: Steve, Ann, Bill and Alan. Ardis was a homemaker and mother, and from 1971-79 worked as the office manager for her husband’s clothing store, Ryerson’s, a fixture on the square in Jefferson for three decades.

Howard Ryerson died on April 14, 1987. Ardis married Bill Brown on Feb. 14, 1992. Bill died on Aug. 6, 2000.

Ardis was a member of First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson, P.E.O., Beta Tau Delta, Evening Star Chapter #107 O.E.S, Greene County Medical Center Auxiliary, and a board member of Jefferson Public Library.

She is survived by her mother, Irma Ferguson of Jefferson; her children; one sister; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

EYE ON GJ SAYS: Ardis was a relative of the Fishers of Grand Junction as Irma Fisher Ferguson was a sister to C. Raymond Fisher, longtime Grand Junction resident and former state representative in the Iowa Legislature. The Eye Guy remembers meeting Alan Ryerson for the first time at fraternity rush as a sophomore at Drake University in the mid-1970s. It was the first meeting ever of “Alan R from Jefferson” and “Alan R from Grand Junction” (The Eye Guy). Alan Ryerson was a junior that year and a member of Phi Delta Theta. It was a surprise to find out this many years later that his mother was also a Drake alumnus.