Maxine Boyce

A funeral service will be conducted on Thursday, July 1st at 1:00 p.m. at the Albin Community Center. An interment service will follow at the Albin Cemetery. Visitation will be held on Wednesday, June 30, 2010, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Schrader Funeral Home with the family receiving friends from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Maxine Boyce, 81, of Cheyenne, formerly of Albin, died peacefully on Monday, June 28, 2010, at the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center after suffering a stroke on June 22nd. She was surrounded by her loving family as she went to meet her Lord. Mildred Maxine Sorensen was born July 25, 1928, in Kimball, Nebraska, the youngest of six children born to Sofus Julius and Helen Ann (Strube) Sorensen. She lived on farms north and west of Albin in her younger years, staying on the family farm to help her parents with farming while her four brothers served in World War II. In 1946, she proudly graduated from Albin High School. She married Lee V. (Short) Boyce on November 16, 1946, in Kimball. She and Short lived on the George Davis Farm west of Albin where Short was involved in farming. They later moved into town and she followed and supported Short’s trucking career and his time as a maintenance man for the Town of Albin. She worked for Holgerson Farms in the early years, planting, sorting, cutting and harvesting potatoes. She worked for several years at Moore’s Grocery in Albin and then at the Albin Post Office, first as a clerk and then as the Postmaster, a position to which she was appointed in 1981 and from which she retired in 1989 after 27 years of service. She greatly enjoyed her years as the Albin Postmaster. Maxine’s family and friends were the joy of her life. She had a fierce loyalty to her entire extended family, to all things Albin, and to her many friends. She was born on the first Albin Day celebration and looked forward to celebrating it and the Albin Alumni Banquet every July. She was a member of the Albin Baptist Church and the Albin American Legion Auxiliary, Post #77. She was an accomplished and self-taught seamstress and an excellent cook. In her younger years, she played catcher on a woman’s softball team coached by her brother, Bill. She never missed an opportunity to visit with a neighbor or family member, helping them however and whenever they needed her. She attended every sporting and school event possible, long after her own children were out of school as she loved to watch all of her kids in their activities. She faithfully followed all of her grandson’s sporting events in Wheatland, Medicine Bow and Chugwater for many years. After moving to Cheyenne in 2008 for health reasons, she made new friends and attended Cheyenne Hills Church. She remained active, loving to get out and go for any reason. One of her favorite things was to spend time with her new great-grandson, Tracen. Maxine is survived by her loving husband, Lee (Short) Boyce of Cheyenne; her daughters, Jeanne Burke and husband, Dick, of Seattle, WA, and Dixie Bowen and husband, Bob, of Cheyenne; her grandson, Todd Howard and wife, Tana, of Cheyenne; a great-grandson, Tracen Lee Howard of Cheyenne; three step-children and three step great-grandchildren that she counted as her very own, Tina Kelker and husband, Christian, and daughter, Elizabeth, of Lancaster, PA, Bobby Bowen and wife, Megan, and children Ben and Lily of Carthage, NY, and Oliver Bowen and wife, Dawn, of Tucson, AZ. She is also survived by a sister, Clara Ann Nelson of Kimball; a brother, Earl Sorensen of Cheyenne; her sisters-in-law; nieces, nephews and many loving friends and extended family. She was preceded in death by her parents; and by her brothers, Fred, Bill and Bob Sorensen. Expressions of sympathy in Maxine’s memory may be made to the Albin Baptist Church.