Ardith Louise Clendenin

Ardith Louise Clendenin, 79, of Pittsburg, Missouri, passed away Thursday, March 15, 2012, at Mercy Hospital, Springfield. She was born August 25, 1932, the daughter of Tommy Coy and Marcella Roberts Koonce in Marion, Illinois. Ardith married Donald Clendenin on March 4, 1951, and they were married for 57 years before his passing in 2008. They were the parents of 3 sons. Ardith was a devoted mother and later when the 3 boys were teenagers in the late 1960's, she eagerly contributed to the family earnings by obtaining her drivers license and working at the Merriam, Kansas, K-Mart for nearly 20 years, starting as a sales clerk and retiring in 1985 as Appliance Department manager. She loved to go shopping for clothes and had a wardrobe that was truly impressive with a shoe collection that would probably have put the Phillipine Imelda Marcos to shame. Don, who was an FAA air traffic controller, and Ardie retired in 1985 to a nice home and 27 acres just off 64B across the road from Pomme de Terre Lake. They had a very good and enjoyable 23 years at home until a tragic fire in July of 2008 took Don's life and burned the house to the ground. A couple of highlights was shortly after they moved in and they decided to stock the large pond on the property with catfish. They drove a long way to get to the nearest catfish hatchery and the hatchery only had 5 gallon milk cans to put the baby fish into, it was kind of a warm spring day and the catfish were almost "done-in" by the time Ardie and Don got them to the pond. They poured the cans of fish into the pond and most of them were floating belly-up. Ardie ventured out onto the fishing plank platform and got down on her knees, and started gently stroking the bellies of the upside-down fish. Amazingly enough the "Ardith version" of fish CPR worked and most of them turned over and swam away! Another highlight was in the fall of 1991 when their ham radio operator son, Neil, decided it was time to install his 90 foot rohn 45G dream radio tower next to the house. The 90 foot guyed radio tower went up without a hitch and the entire construction crew consisted of Neil, Don, and Ardith! It stayed up for 17 years until the house fire in 2008 took out one of the main guy wires. Neil operated 2 amateur radio FM repeaters from antennas high atop the tower-a VHF on 146.9850 MHz and a UHF on 442.250 MHz. Don and Ardith also held technician class amateur radio licenses- Don's call sign was NONWZ and Ardith's was NOYXI. Ardith was also a devoted gardener, she and Neil put in a large garden with tomato plants, green beans, lettuce, dill and other vegetables every year. More recently she had been slowing down but one of her favorite pasttimes was to watch the weather channel on the big screen TV without listening to the sound track. Weather and storms fascinated her. She was of the Protestant faith. She was fond of her cats. Ardith was preceded in death by her parents, husband Donald, and brother Doug Koonce. She is survived by her sons W. Neil Clendenin of Shawnee, Kansas; Ronald Clendenin and wife Mary of Glendale, Arizona; and Alan Clendenin of Glendale, Arizona. A visitation will be held at Murray Funeral Home, Bolivar, on Tuesday, March 20th from 2-4 PM with cremation to follow. PDF Printable Version

Ardith Louise Clendenin

August 25, 1932 - March 15, 2012