Roberta Gartrell
January 7, 1926 - August 7, 2025
With great sadness, the family of Roberta M. Gartrell announces her passing on August 7, 2025, at the age of 99 years old. Born in 1926 in Enid, Oklahoma to Forrest Karl and Bessie Pearl Nesselrode, she grew up in Lamont, Oklahoma, where she graduated from high school in 1944. She studied at Northern Oklahoma Junior College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma for two years before accepting work at a flour mill in Abilene, Kansas, testing flour for sale to bakery enterprises of the day. It was while she lived in Abilene that she met a young soldier from the state of Washington who would become her husband. She married Edwin J. Gartrell on September 11, 1946, and they made a home in Abilene for several years, where she was a full-time homemaker. Together they had three children: Renee, Leslie, and Forest.
For a short time, the family relocated to the state of Washington before moving to Oklahoma in 1964. They settled in Ponca City, where they made a permanent home for over 30 years. For many years Roberta worked for the City of Ponca City at the Ponca City Cultural Center and Indian Museum (now known as Marland’s Grand Home on West Grand Avenue) where she greeted guests and curated exhibits. She dearly loved doing research on historical events and artifacts and caring for the thousands of historical items housed at the museum, particularly those related to the Native American culture.
Even after her retirement she spent a great deal of time reading about Native American tribes from all over the United States and collecting Native American art and crafts. After retirement, she relocated to Denver, Colorado, to be near her children. She traveled throughout the United States and Canada and adored visiting museums across the country. Her family will remember her as a devoted homemaker, including her skills as a wonderful seamstress and a consummate holiday cook and baker.
She is preceded in death by her parents, Karl and Bessie Nesselrode; a brother, Winston Nesselrode; her husband, Edwin Gartrell; a daughter, Dawn Renee Hisey; and her son, Forest Gartrell. Her surviving family members include her brother, Robert Nesselrode of Ponca City; her daughter, Leslie (John) Toepfer of Buena Vista, Colorado; her granddaughters Mary (David) Adams of Broken Arrow; Edwina Bridgman (Debbie Blais) of Bartlesville, Oklahoma; Adriana Gray-Burns (Trey Burns) of Prosper, Texas; and several great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, who were her joy.
Roberta is interred at Lamont Cemetery, next to the husband that she loved. The family will hold a private celebration of life dinner at a later time. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that in memoriam donations be sent to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, where she was a member for many years: NMAI, P.O. Box 23473, Washington, D.C. 20026-3473 or https://americanindian.si.edu/.
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