Lois Lee Ramsey, 84, of Perry died Thursday, March 27, 2025, from complications of multiple sclerosis at the Eden Acres campus of the Perry Lutheran Homes in Perry, Iowa.
She was born Nov. 30, 1940, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the daughter of Capt. Linus E. “Bud” Huck and Mayor Ann Alice Foster Huck.
Lois Lee graduated from Illmo-Fornfelt High School and then earned a B.S. at Southeast Missouri State College, M.S. and Ph.D. at Tulane University and held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Albert Einstein Research Institute in Philadelphia.
She was a popular teacher of ecology, comparative anatomy and animal behavior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Tuskegee Institute until diagnosed with MS 53 years ago.
She married her graduate school sweetheart, John S. Ramsey, and they settled in Auburn, Alabama. Later they worked at Iowa State University in Ames and Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, before retiring to her beloved hometown of Commerce in southeast Missouri, where they built their dream house on a ridge top overlooking the Mississippi River.
She and John were married for 55 years. They both became seriously handicapped and were invited to join their children in Iowa.
Lois Lee was a member of the St. Paul United Methodist Church in Commerce, where she taught children’s Sunday School classes for 20 years.
She was beloved by everyone who met her and was the kindest and most helpful person imaginable.
In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by three brothers-in-law and two sisters-in-law.
Surviving in addition to her husband are son, John M. Ramsey (Leslie Dvorak) of Papillion, Nebraska, and daughter, Flora A. Ramsey-Khosravi (Sasha) of Grimes; brother, Linus F. Huck of Fruitland, Missouri, and sister, George Ann Huck (Gabriel Ramirez) of Merida, Mexico; and four grandchildren.
A memorial service will be scheduled at the St. Paul United Methodist Church in Commerce, Missouri. Lois is now free of wheelchairs and walkers. She again can stroll freely with her favorite cardinals, hummingbirds and butterflies by the woods, the river, her homeplaces. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.caldwellparrish.com.
