Graveside services for Thelma are scheduled for Sept. 29, 11:00 a.m., at the Weaver Cemetery in Ozark, under the direction of Greenlawn Funeral Home South. The family requests that attendees continue to be mindful of the immune-compromised individuals who will be present among the family and friends attending this celebration of Ms. Hermilla’s life. Please observe caution in an effort to minimize the unintended sharing of any of the current variants of the coronavirus. Friends are welcome to stop by and sign the register book from 8am – 5pm, Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at Greenlawn Funeral Home South.

Thelma (Wood) Hermilla, 88, former Ozark resident, died Aug. 28, in Springfield, MO, at Magnolia Square Nursing and Rehab. Born in Ozark in the Emanuel and Fern (Hobbs) Wood home, Thelma Hermilla, spent her childhood years growing up on the Wood Dairy Farm on old Highway 14 — now South Tenth Ave. She attended the Ozark elementary school until the 8th grade and began her High School years at Oak Grove Heights, Missouri before transferring to Madison College near Nashville, Tennessee. While attending Madison College, Thelma Hermilla met Juan Hermilla and returned to Ozark in 1951 to marry and begin a family.

Thelma Hermilla represents the last of Emanuel and Fern Wood’s living children. Juan Hermilla, Thelma’s parents and brothers, Rex Wood, Robert Wood, and Ray Wood, all pre-deceased her. Survivors include: Her son, Nelson Hermilla and wife, Helene Lisy of Chestertown, Maryland; Nieces and nephews, Gary and wife, Shelley Wood of Springfield, Margaret and husband Larry Braughton of Nixa, Emmale and husband, Al Judycki of Nixa, C. J. Wood of Springfield, Steven Wood, and many grand nephews, nieces, and cousins.

Thelma Hermilla completed her education at Drury University earning a four-year degree in 1996. After attending Drury, she continued her pursuit of life-long learning in a variety of subject matters. Around Ozark, Nixa, Strafford, Rogersville, and Doling Park, many knew Thelma Hermilla for her exceptional singing voice, her guitar-playing, and her rhythmic bass fiddle. Ms. Hermilla began playing music early in her life with her father, Emanuel Wood, at the “Ozark Opry” on the North side of the Ozark square. For many of her more recent years of playing music, until age 83, Thelma would wheel her bass fiddle to as many as four music gatherings per week.

Thelma Hermilla played music with the “Ozark Travelers” at the Ozark Senior Center and with musicians at other area Senior Centers. Ms. Hermilla played with “The Fiddlers Four” at Silver Dollar City from 1967-1974 during each year’s “Root Diggin’ Days” and the Fall Craft festival. She played music with her father, Emanuel Wood, and all three brothers, Rex, Robert, and Ray under the Arch in St. Louis during the Frontier Folklife Festival in 1978. The Missouri Friends of Folk Arts included Thelma Hermilla, her father, and her siblings on a few selections featured on the double LP album entitled “I’m Old But I’m Awfully Tough” that the Missouri Arts Council distributed to all of Missouri’s county public libraries.

As a young woman, Thelma Hermilla joined and, throughout her life except for the years living away from the Ozarks, she regularly attended the Springfield Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She shared her voice in singing with the congregation as well as providing special music from time-to-time with other church members and, occasionally, with her brother Rex. She worked many years as the Secretary for the church.

Thelma Hermilla’s career years included working in health care at Madison Hospital, Madison, TN; Ozark’s Dr. Stanley Roper’s ten-bed clinic on the Ozark Square; the Ozark Nursing Home; Snyder Nursing Home, Lincoln, Nebraska; the Osteopathic Hospital in Springfield; Cox Medical Center (Burge); and in providing care for home bound clients for Visiting Nurses. Thelma especially enjoyed working in the Obstetrics wing of the University Medical Center while she attended classes at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She also worked for Litton Industries; and, in her later years, as a liaison in supplying pharmacies in Springfield and surrounding communities.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Thelma Hermilla’s name to The Ozark Studies Institute. Checks should be made payable to “Missouri State University Libraries” and mailed to the Meyer Library, Ozark Studies Institute, Attention: Melissa Eiken, 901 S. National, Springfield, MO 65807.