March 4, 1907-July 1, 2003

JOSEPH – Former Milton-Freewater resident and longtime Wallowa county resident Rita Reavis, 96, died Tuesday, July 1, 2003 at Regency at The Park in College Place, Wash.

Private family services will be held.

She was born March 4, 1907 in Wallowa County. She was the youngest of seven children, following five boys and one girl born to Wallowa county pioneers William Perry and Lucy Angeline Shields Warnock.

The family lived on the ranch on the Imnaha until her parents built a home in Enterprise. They lived there during the school year so the kids could attend school. She graduated from Enterprise High School and the University of Oregon. She was a music major and with her sister, Nina, studied in New York City. Nina played the violin and Rita, the piano.

After returning to Wallowa County in the early 1930s, she married Ernest Collinsworth in the spring of 1934. They made their home on a ranch five miles east of Joseph and had a daughter, Charlotte.

Mr. Collinsworth was killed in a haying accident a few years after their marriage. Rita and her daughter lived in California for a time with Rita’s sister and later returned to Enterprise where she worked at the clerk’s office.

She married Herbert Reavis and they lived in various locations until making their home on the ranch once again. After retirement they lived at their cabin at Wallowa Lake and later at Imnaha. Mr. Reavis preceded her in death. She moved to Milton-Freewater in 1984 to be near her family.

Mrs. Reavis enjoyed hunting, fly fishing, photography and working in her yard. She was a longtime member of the Eastern Star and the Legion Auxiliary of Joseph.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Charlotte and Ron Parsons of Milton-Freewater; grandchildren, Andy, Joe and Jim Parsons, Lori Eichelberger, Nina Rhodes, Dawn Scartozzi and Mary LeFore; and 14 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her brothers, Elmer, Perry, Earl, Jesse and Vern Warnock and her sister, Nina Klove.

Munselle-Rhodes Funeral Home, 902 S. Main St, Milton-Freewater, OR in charge