Roma Ileen Weir

Roma Ileen Weir, 97, wife of the late Floyd E. Weir, passed away Sept. 28, 2020, at Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Ill. of natural causes. Her son, Brent Weir, and her daughter-in-law, Lisa, were at her bedside.

Roma Ileen McConnell was born May 2, 1923, in Martinsburg Township, Pike County, Ill., daughter of Robert Franklin and Maud Grace Galloway McConnell.

Roma loved school and had perfect attendance records from first through 12th grades. She graduated as valedictorian from Pleasant Hill Community High School in May 1941. 

She attended business school and worked in St. Louis, Mo., until she enlisted in the Coast Guard. Her picture was used in an ad for Coast Guard enlistment in a St. Louis paper. Roma served in the Coast Guard during World War II, 1945-1946 as storekeeper, 2nd Class petty officer. 

She was a proud SPAR and attended many SPAR WW II reunion celebrations with her daughters and their husbands across the country.

Mrs. Weir worked and raised her four children while furthering her own education. She received a B.S. degree in elementary education from Quincy College in 1973. She went on to get her masters of arts degree in library science from the University of Missouri in 1984. 

Mrs. Weir worked at Liberty, Ill. Community School District from 1974 to her retirement in 1988. 

She was an avid reader and loved to travel, visiting six continents and all 50 states. Roma was also an amazing seamstress, making many of her daughters’ and sons’ clothes, doll clothes, dance costumes, wedding dresses and using her self-taught skills to reupholster many chairs and couches for herself and her family.

Roma Weir was active in many organizations over her lifetime. She served as Brownie, Girl Scout and Boy Scout troop leader for all of her children and their friends. She was a member of Alpha Delta Kappa, serving as treasurer from  1977-1999: Retired Teachers of Adams County: Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) member serving as Regent, 2001-2003; charter member of the Great River Genealogical Society, 1975-2010, editing and writing their Yellow Jacket quarterly newsletter for many years. 

Mrs. Weir also researched, wrote articles for and helped coordinate the publishing of a book in 1995, “Pike County, Illinois Schools History and Pictures, 1823-1995.”

In addition to her husband, Roma was preceded in death by three brothers, Dawson, Kermit and Gordon McConnell and two sisters, Norma Arlene Browne and Wanda Franklin. 

Mrs. Weir is survived by her children, Brenda Wyatt (Robert), Keller, Texas; Christina McVea (Charles), Ingleside, Ill.; Ronald Weir, Flagstaff, Ariz.; and Brent Weir (Lisa), Palmyra, Mo.; two grandsons, Matthew Wyatt (Jaclyn), Prosper, Texas; and Scott Wyatt (Stacy), Garland, Texas; three granddaughters, Brette Orr (Jeff), Hannibal, Mo.; Nicole Weir, Blue Springs, Mo.; and Alicia Weir, Palmyra, Mo.; one great-grandson and five great-granddaughters. 

She so loved all her nieces and nephews and her foreign exchange student from Italy, Lisa Cevolani, and her son, Ernesto.

Graveside services, with military honors, will be held Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 2 p.m. at Crescent Heights Cemetery in Pleasant Hill, Ill. 

Memorials in memory of Roma may be made to Dorothy Quincy DAR Chapter Scholarship Fund, 512 E. 2400th St., Liberty, Ill. 62347 or to the Crescent Heights Cemetery Association.