Family to Receive Friends: Monday, March 29, 2010 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home
Funeral Service: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City.
Graveside Service: Custer County Cemetery.
Susan M. Nitschke, 83, died Friday, March 26th in the loving care of her family and many friends. Her cheerful nature and gentle smile, ever faithful to the end, was an inspiration to everyone who knew her.
Born Susan May Clark on June 19, 1926 at Hazelton, ND, she was the second of 9 children born to Curtis and Sarah Clark.She spent her early years around Camp Crook and Buffalo, SD, a hard life coping with lifes privations during the Great Depressions dust bowl years. When WWII came she moved to the Seattle area to work as a welder in the naval ship yards. During the latter stages of the war she was summoned to inland Washington to the Hanford nuclear reservation, a place that was new and mysterious to her. She never said much about those years, but occasionally told of the times her job required her to work on unusual pieces of metal that were unlike anything she had seen before. Her superiors were very secretive about what they were working on, never letting them work on the same object twice while continuously rotating them around to different tasks. Little did she know at the time that she was involved in the Manhattan project, developing the plutonium bomb that was ultimately dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
After the war she moved from Buffalo to Miles City to work for the Miles City Bank. While living in Miles City she roomed at a house owned By Albert and Gladys Nitschke where she met their son John E. (Jack) Nitschke who was back from the service in the Army in Germany. Susan and Jack Nitschke were married September 19th, 1948, spending the next 59 years of their marriage in Miles City where Susan worked at various jobs, around town. Susan and Jack spent many years enjoying their retirement, traveling and spending the Montana winters in Arizona.Her life defined the type of person she was; incredibly strong with a beautiful spirit and smile to match. She loved her job at Buttreys which kept her in contact with the public. She had the most delightfully offbeat sense of humor and you never knew what she was going to say next, just that it was always something that would have everyone laughing and scratching their heads at the same time.
She is survived by her three daughters, Barbara (Jim) Bender and Deborah (Rob) Zignego of Miles City, and Patricia (Dave) Filler of Tacoma, Washington, and son Michael (Drena) Nitschke of Amarillo, Texas, a Brother, Curtis Clark Jr. of Sturgis, SD and two sisters Gladys Johnston of Prineville, OR and Phyllis Matson of Sioux Falls, SD.
Susan was preceded in death by her husband, Jack, two brothers Johnny and Tommy Clark, three sisters, Laura Fladmoe, Ilean Verhulst and Alice OByrne.
Visitation will begin on Monday, March 29, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home with family receiving friends from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City. Interment will follow in the family lot of the Custer County Cemetery. Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home of Miles City is in trusted with the arrangements.
Should friends desire, memorials may be made to the Miles City Food Bank or Holy Rosary Hospice
Service Schedule
Service Schedule
Share
Add your thoughts and memories. Upon approval they will be added.