 BLACK, NELLIE MAE BISSETT Age 96, of Albuquerque, NM, formerly of Las Cruces, NM, Vincennes, IN and Deep Valley, PA passed away on February 26, 2012 after a brief decline following a stroke. She was predeceased by her brothers, Kenneth, Joseph, Edison, and Wilson Bissett; her sister, Mrs. Mary (Bissett) Ornduff; her husband, Dr. Boyd Keough Black who passed away in 1982; and her oldest son, Andrew Bissett Black. She is survived by her four children, David Black of Vanderpool, Texas, Rebecca Bringle of Indianapolis, Indiana, Cynthia Hall of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and John Thomas Black of Houston, Texas; seven grandchildren; and six great- grandchildren. Nellie was born on July 8, 1915 at home at her family's farm in Deep Valley, West Virginia, the fourth of six children of Nellie Mae Autin Bissett and Marion Wilson Bissett. Her father was a schoolteacher, church elder, and owner of an oil well drilling business and the first Ford dealership in the vicinity. Her mother ran the farm and household, usually feeding not only the family but hired hands, as well. In her childhood, Nellie attended a one-room school house for a time, studied McGuffie's Reader, sang hymns with the family around the piano in the parlor, and worked beside her mother and sister canning food for winter, churning butter, and sewing clothes. She was a bright, hardworking student and, for her last year of high school, lived with her older sister in a boarding house in a nearby town to attend a better school. Nellie's upbringing was loving, orderly, and imbued with home-centered purpose and optimism, characteristics she possessed throughout her life. Nellie trained as a nurse before entering Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a BS degree in 1940. She completed coursework for a Master's Degree in Biology at Duke University, but interrupted her thesis work on childhood obesity to marry a young medical student, Boyd Black, and move with him to Vermont for the completion of his medical school and internship. He entered the Navy in 1943, and Nellie's growing family moved a number of times during his 12-year naval career, living in California, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. After the Navy, they settled in Vincennes, Indiana in 1957, where Nellie was a homemaker and pursued her lifelong interest in art. While rearing her five children, Nellie earned a BS in Art Education from Indiana State University in 1964 and studied art at the Herron School of Art and the Art League of Indianapolis. Nellie taught art briefly at Vincennes University and became a professional portrait artist, painting hundreds of portraits for family and friends and on commission. She displayed her works in private and juried shows in Indiana, New Mexico and Colorado, often winning awards. Throughout her art career, Nellie studied with many well-known artists, including Sergei Bongart, Albert Handel and Zhang Wenxin. In 1980, Nellie and her husband retired to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she continued to paint and pursue other creative outlets including designing quilts, making bead jewelry, and creating bookmarks and greeting cards from pressed flowers. She moved to Albuquerque in 1991 to be near her new grandchildren, on whose lives she was a gentle, helpful influence. Following a private family gathering upon her death, her cremated remains were returned to Indiana and buried next to her eldest son's grave in the Upper Indiana Cemetery in Vincennes.
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