Mathilda Bucknam

On January 4, 2010, Tillie Bucknam, 99, of Jamestown, North Dakota passed away.

Tillie was born on July 25, 1910 in Mandan, North Dakota, the daughter of Peter and Hilda Campbell. She lived in the Mandan area until her family moved to South Dakota, and later to Minnesota after her mother passed away in 1918. After her father passed away in 1925, she moved to Pingree, North Dakota and was raised by her Aunt Susan and Uncle Alex, who farmed in the area. She attended St John’s Academy in Jamestown, graduating in 1930. She worked as a governess while in High School and later at the Grill restaurant next to the post office, where she met her husband, Steve, in 1935. Steve and Tillie were married at St James Church in Jamestown, in December 1938. In 1939 they moved to California, where she worked as a waitress and later as an office nurse for a doctor in Los Angeles. She was active in her church for over 30 years teaching CCD classes into the 1980’s. She served as an election official at her home in Northridge California from the1950’s to the late 1980’s. She and her husband returned to Jamestown in 1990 to her husband’s boyhood home. They updated and remodeled the place and she lived there until 2007, when she moved to Ave Maria Village in Jamestown. Upon their return, she built a network of loving and caring friends with everyone whose lives she touched

She and Steve enjoyed hiking, traveling and building their dream home in Northridge together, which remains in the family to this day. She loved gardening and nature. Tillie was an avid reader and spent many hours with her sons in long discussion on various topics.

She exhibited a strong example of a loving Christian wife and mother to her two sons, Steve, Jr of Laguna Niguel, California and Neil of Northridge, California. She is survived by her sons and their wives, Jody (Steve) and Bari (Neil). She has seven grandchildren, Mark, Peter, Jim, Greg, and Sean, Ryan and Marisa, and eight great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her father, mother, stepmother, seven brothers and sisters.

She always considered herself a “Prairie Girl” who will now rest in her beloved North Dakota prairie. Mom is now with Jesus her Lord, and has been reunited with her loving husband Steve, who passed away in 2004.

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