Lois Wilson Murray Zizert

Lois Rachel Wilson was born February 3, 1908.  Her parents were Katherine Pine Wilson, 1876-1940, and Arthur Jacob Wilson, 1875-1944, both from Centerville.  Her sister Marjorie was six years older and died of tuberculosis at the age of 35 years.  Lois was proud of her heritage.  In an essay that she wrote in 1980, she said that the Wilson family came to America from Wales and fought in the Revolutionary War.  In 1778, the family journeyed westward to Greene County, Ohio and bought 320 acres for two cents an acre.  Her great great-grandfather Daniel Wilson, born 1759 in New Jersey, moved to Washington Township in 1811.

Lois went to school in Dayton, graduating from Steele High School.  She preferred the outdoors to school and found it hard to concentrate, but she worked hard.  She took pride in her schoolwork and wanted to do as well as her many cousins in Centerville and Dayton.  She took art classes and writing classes, attended Oberlin, and in 1934 graduated from the University of Cincinnati.  In later years, she studied Kindergarten Education at University of Dayton.

Lois taught elementary school for ten years in Dayton, then moved to Daytona Beach, Florida and taught ten years.  She moved back to Centerville in the early 1950s and taught sixth grade at Magsig for one year.  Preferring the younger grades, she found a job in the Beavercreek schools and taught there for fourteen years.

She was a world traveler.  By 1974, she had toured the British Isles, all of Europe, the Netherlands, Turkey, South America, the South Sea Islands, Australia and New Zealand.  In the next ten years, she added China, the Middle East, and Russia.  She also returned to many of the countries that she had already visited.

Lois was creative.  She wrote poetry, short stories, and a few books.  One was a ghost story about the Nutt Cottage, and three others were about family, friends, and living in the country.  She was a talented seamstress, making clothes and quilts.  She loved gardening, trees and birds.  She was a member of the Audubon Society, identifying close to 200 birds by their songs, plumage, flight patterns and nesting quarters.  And she made over 600 scrapbooks, mostly to give away, in the tradition of her mother and grandmother.

In 1966, Lois was concerned about the survival of her stone house, that she had owned since 1959, amidst the razing of many buildings in Centerville.  She approached the city council and said, "What can I do?" Her idea was to leave her house to the city since she had no heirs.  The City Development Committee had been talking about organizing an historical society and this seemed to be an opportunity to do just that.  So Lois' concern about preserving her historic home was the birth of the Centerville Historical Society with Lois filling the position of the first president.

In a "This is Your Life" party for Lois in 1977, her friends said she had an "adventurous and inquisitive spirit to see and know all that she could about this planet that she lived on."  For us, her foresight and generosity is much appreciated.

For more about Lois click here.