Luella M. Hewer, 96, died Monday, January 5, 2009, at Firesteel Healthcare Center in Mitchell, South Dakota. Memorial services will be held at 11:00AM Saturday March 28, 2009 at the Letcher Community Church in Letcher. Burial will be in Graceland Cemetery. She was born September 21, 1912 to Alfred and Anna Pence at Letcher, South Dakota. After graduation in 1930 from Letcher High School, she attended Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell and graduated in 1932 with a two-year degree in elementary education and later in 1968 a Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1933 she taught rural school for two years in a rural school in Elliot Township in Sanborn County followed by four more years in Geddes, South Dakota. June 1, 1939, she married Arthur Hewer at his uncle's home in Norfolk, Nebraska. The couple farmed in the Letcher area for 63 years.

In 1948 she taught for one year in Letcher, followed in 1963 by eight years in Woonsocket and twelve years at Longfellow School in Mitchell. In 1974 she was selected as an Outstanding Elementary Teacher of America.
She was a lifelong, active member of the United Church of Christ in Letcher, the Letcher Civic Study Club, and for several years the Mitchell Sweet Adelines. During the fifties she directed the Civic Study Club annual community plays and several Butler Booster 4-H winning talent presentations at the South Dakota State Fair.

Grateful for having shared her life are her son, Gary A. Hewer and his wife, Carol, of Ridgecrest, California, her granddaughter, Elizabeth Gossett and her husband, Sean, and great-grandson Dante of Bakersfield, California, many nieces, nephews, and friends, old and young.

She was preceded in death by her husband, three infants, three brothers and five sisters and many nephews and nieces.