Alice Ackerman

Memorial services for Alice R. Ackerman, 91, will be held at 10:00 a.m. Friday, January 4th at the Upton Community Center with Rev. Cliff Moore of Sundance, Wyoming officiating. A memorial has been established and the family welcomes all contributions. Worden Funeral Directors of Newcastle is in charge of the arrangements.

Mrs. Ackerman died Sunday, December 30th at the Weston Manor Nursing Home in Newcastle.

Alice was born April 13, 1916 to Harry E. Reynolds and Charlotte Stanton Reynolds at the family homestead near Rocky Point, Wyoming. At the age of six years Alice moved with her family to the Reynolds Family Ranch in the Black Buttes southeast of Sundance. She attended rural school through the eighth grade and graduated from Sundance High School in 1934. While growing up on the ranch Alice helped with all ranch chores and she and her younger brother Stanton broke horses for the ?D? ranch. She won a scholarship to the University of Wyoming but these were depression times and there was no money to get to Laramie. While attending High School Alice worked at the Sundance Service Station for five cents an hour and upon graduation she became a full time employee and her wages were raised to ten cents an hour. Alice was then offered a job at the Rural Rehabilitation Administration as a clerk?typist where she eventually earned the princely sum of $37.50 per week.
She met Evertt Ackerman, an employee of the Sundance State Bank, and they were married on September 18, 1937. In the spring of 1946, Evertt and Alice along with Jay Durfee, Harry Ilsley, and Russell Twiford purchased the Union State Bank in Upton, Wyoming. Evertt became the manager of the Upton Bank and Evertt, Alice and young sons John and Bill moved to Upton. Alice was involved in the management of the bank and the A.D.I. Insurance Agency until 1982. She was the first woman bank president in Wyoming and served in that position for fourteen years.
Alice was a loyal and dedicated member of the Upton Community. She was involved in numerous civic events, gave generously of her time to improve her community and was the first Upton Citizen to be recognized as ?Citizen of the Year.?
Preceding her in death was her husband Evertt, parents, and two brothers, Lester who died as an infant on the homestead and Cecil of Gillette, Wyoming.
Survivors include sons John of Tiki Island, Texas and Bill of rural Upton, Wyoming; two granddaughters, Leslie of Raton, New Mexico and Jessica of Jackson, Wyoming; two step?grandchildren, Andrew Coleman of and Rebecca Gannon both of New York; one great granddaughter, Zoe Ackerman; and one step great grandchild Dane Evertt. Also surviving are two brothers, Stanton Reynolds of Fort Myers of Florida and Gene Reynolds of Cheyenne, WY, and three sisters, Doris Lake and Clara Edna Kipp both of Sundance, and Carol Peters of Dubois, WY.