SHERIDAN - Graveside services for Sheridan resident Lily M. Darke, 97, will be conducted at 2 p.m., Monday, March 8, in Sheridan Municipal Cemetery, with the Rev. Don Derryberry officiating. Friends and family may call from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., Monday, at Champion Ferries Funeral Home.

She died March 1, 2004, at Memorial Hospital of Sheridan County.

Born Feb. 11, 1907, in Sheridan, she was the daughter of John and Anna (Strandberg) Johnson. She was raised and graduated from high school in Sheridan. She also graduated from Wyoming Normal Training and later from the University of Wyoming.

She married C. Hugh Abbott Oct. 29, 1926, and they divorced in 1929. On Nov. 7, 1935, she married R. Frank Darke.

She started teaching in 1929 at Elk Mountain School and taught for about 40 years in Sheridan and Johnson counties. She completed her last 19 years of teaching in the grade school of Buffalo, from which she retired in 1972. After retirement, she and her husband moved to Sheridan.

As a member of the First United Methodist Church, she also taught Sunday school for a number of years and was active in a church circle. She volunteered at Sheridan Manor (then Eventide) and was a member of the Sheridan-Johnson County Pioneer Association. She was also a member of the National Retired Teachers Association.

Survivors include her daughter-in-law; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband in 1980, and by her son, Stephen J. Abbott, in 1988.

Memorials in her honor can be made to PACTEC, an organization to help the poor in underdeveloped nations, in care of her grandson, Paul Abbott, P.O. Box 2183, Redlands, CA 92373.

Arrangements are under the direction of Champion Ferries Funeral Home.