Last updated 5 April 1998.
Joseph Wesley Pursey, a native of Polk township and a retired farmer of that area, died at 4:30 Thursday morning at Weatherford's Sunshine Manor in Carlinville. He was 87 years of age.
Funeral services were held at 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon at the Warner-Targhetta funeral home in Chesterfield and interment was in Kemper cemetery there. The Rev. Rodney Ruberg was the officiating minister.
Born July 10 1893, Mr. Pursey was a son of the late Charles and Josephine Christen Pursey. He married Lucille Ketchum on March 6, 1943, in Carlinville and she preceded him in death on September 15, 1973.
A veteran of World War I, he leaves two sons, Harold of Chesterfield and Melvin of Carlinville; three grandchildren; three sisters, Dorothy Sembell of Springfield, Mrs. Mildred Will [sic] of Hillsboro and Mrs. Lilly Yowell of East Alton, as well as one brother, Theodore of Auburn, Calif.