Jeraldine Hyder

(From Ferry Funeral Home)

Jeraldine Grace Hyder, 84, Nevada, MO, passed from this life on Sunday, May 31, 2026, at her home in Nevada. Jeraldine was born January 10, 1942, in Jasper, MO, to Charles Pyle and Ehtel May (Felty) Pyle.

Jeraldine lived a life of hard work, sacrifice, and devotion to others. For 84 years, she met life’s challenges with determination, generosity, and a caring spirit that touched everyone around her. From childhood, Jeraldine learned the value of hard work and caring for others. 

As a young girl, she helped clean wells with her brother, small enough to be lowered into them by bucket. At just nine years old, she left home to live with another family, helping care for an elderly couple, including a woman with two broken arms, while sending money home to support her mother. The lessons she learned during those years, hard work, resilience, and putting others before herself, would shape the rest of her life. Jeraldine married Athel Hyder at the age of fourteen and welcomed her first child at fifteen. Over the years, she became the mother of six children, including one infant who lived only a short time. She expressed her love through home-cooked meals, open doors, helping hands, and lots of coffee.

Throughout her life, Jeraldine worked wherever work could be found. She hauled hay, gathered eggs on a chicken farm, worked in local factories, sewed garments, and took on countless responsibilities to help support her family. Later, she found her calling caring for others. She worked for many years at the Nevada State Hospital serving individuals with developmental disabilities and continued that work after its closure in residential and group home settings. Whether she was caring for family members, coworkers, or those entrusted to her care, she approached every role with patience, compassion, and dedication.

Jeraldine was the steady presence in an often-chaotic world. Her home was rarely quiet and never closed to those who needed a meal, a place to sit, or sleep. Family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers found a place at her table.

Nothing brought Jeraldine more pride than her family. She loved talking about her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and never missed an opportunity to tell others about them. She is survived by a family that grew from her love and dedication, including 15 grandchildren and 44 great-grandchildren.

Jeraldine’s legacy lives on in the family she nurtured, the people she cared for, and the example she set through a lifetime of perseverance, kindness, and service to others. She will be remembered for her hard work, and for the way family, friends, and neighbors gathered at her home for coffee throughout her life, the strength that carried her through every hardship, the selflessness that defined her relationships, and the unwavering patience she poured into her family and community.

Jeraldine is survived by three children, Gean Hyder (Cathy), Judy Luther (Donny), Linda Dulaney (Ralph); 15 grandchildren; 44 great-grandchildren; brother, Leo Pyle, Ottawa, KS; as well as numerous other family …and she loved every one of them.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Athel Hyder, a baby boy, a son, Leon Hyder, a daughter, Karen Mosher, and a sister, Pat Hutchcraft,.

Funeral services will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 4, 2026, at Ferry Funeral Home in Nevada with Pastor Terry Mosher officiating. Interment will follow in Wagoner Cemetery in Stockton, MO. The family will receive friends from 5-7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening at the funeral home.