Obit: Dergance, Mathew #2 (1880 - 1966)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Dergance, Vodash, Nikolai

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 8/11/1966

Dergance, Mathew (4 September 1880 – 1 August 1966)

Funeral services were held last Friday at 10 a.m. from the Holy Family Catholic Church in Willard for Mathew Dergance, Sr., 85, of Willard, who died August 1 in Neillsville.  The Rev. William Nikolai officiated and burial was made in the Holy Family Cemetery in Willard.

A rosary service was read last Thursday evening at 8 o’clock at the Hill Funeral Home in Greenwood.

Mr. Dergance was born September 4, 1880, in Yugoslavia and came to the United States at the age of 16.  He located in California, where he had hoped to find some relatives. Unable to do so, he went on to Alaska, where he spent eight years. He returned to the United States and worked in the mines in Washington and Colorado, before moving to Clark County in 1916.  In June of 1911, he was married to the former Mary Vodash, in Black Diamond, Wash.  She died in 1946.

He began farming in the Willard area and had continued to reside on the farm.  He became ill about a year ago.

Mr. Dergance was a member of Holy Family Catholic Church.

He is survived by four sons: Albin of Chicago, Ill., Vernon of Broadview, Ill., Edwin of Willard, and Mathew, Jr., of Hillside, Ill.  Other survivors are eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.