Location: N-Crowson

Born: July 22, 1918 Sedwick, Shackelford County, Texas

Died: March 5, 2009 Waco, McLennan County, Texas

Daughter of Robert Leader Rice and Lizzie Harndt Rice

Parents:
Robert Leader Rice (1872 – 1937)
Lizzie Harndt Rice (1885 – 1934)

Col. Clara D. Rice, Ret., 91, of Waco, passed away Thursday, March 5, 2009, at Providence Hospital in Waco.

Services with full military honors from the U.S. Army will be 2 p.m. Monday, March 9, at OakCrest Funeral Home. Private burial will follow at China Spring Cemetery. Visitation with her family will be 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, March 8, at OakCrest Funeral Home.

Col. Rice was born in Sedwick, Texas, to the late Robert L. and Elise Rice. She graduated from Meridian High School in 1939, and from Providence School of Nursing in 1945. She served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corp. for 20 years. She served in Hawaii, Japan, Stuttgart, Germany and Korea. She also worked stateside posts in Washington, Missouri, Texas and New Mexico. After retiring from the Army, she taught nursing at the University of Texas in El Paso for 10 years. She then retired to Waco, where she has since lived with her beloved pets.

She was preceded in death by two brothers; and three sisters.

She is survived by a sister, Wilma Eppolito, of Rosenberg; nieces, Peggy Moore, of Schulenberg, Jean Harvey and husband, Percy, of Clifton, Martha Fisher, of Odessa, and Judy Scherer and husband, Mike, of Richmond; several great-nieces and nephews; special friends, Doris Rodriguez who worked for her for many years, and Geneva Harvey, a niece who has been an angel to her; and her beloved pets, a cat, Grayboy and a dog, Oseto.