Nica Rusco

Nica Maurine Luinstra-Cayot Rusco

12 Jan 1929-04 Oct 2022

Maurine was born the 15th of 16 children to John Luinstra and Ica Blanche Surgeon on the 12th of January 1929 in Laverne, Oklahoma and passed away the 4th of October 2022 in Fairview, Oklahoma at the age of 93.

After her mother’s death, when she was nine, she lived with various older siblings and later, after her father remarried, with her father and stepmother.  Her father and stepmother, Mary Otice O’Dell , added three younger sisters to her family.

Maurine became a single mother at a very young age prior to her marriage in 1946 to Everett Cayot.  They made their home in the Ringwood-Cleo Springs area where they had five additional children.  They raised their children, gardened, kept goats for milk, raised rabbits, chickens, and occasional other animals pretty much living from the land.

Maurine and her mother-in-law made lye soap, baked bread for both households, did laundry with a wringer washer and hung laundry to dry, the following day was spent ironing.  They canned hundreds of jars of meat and vegetables every summer including wild greens and fruit that Maurine and her children foraged.

Life changed when the family moved to Okeene in the early 1960s.   With no huge garden or preschool children, Maurine got a job as a nurse-aid in the local nursing home.  She worked for many years on the wing reserved for the mentally and physically disabled.  She loved her “nursing home children” family.  She retired after around 25 years due to some health issues.

After her divorce and a few years of being single again, she married Clifford Rusco and they cared for each other for 35 years, until his death in September of 2021.

She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Clifford Rusco; her ex-husband, Everett Cayot;  daughter, Barbara Focht;  granddaughters, Cassandra Brown and Daryla Fisher; grandsons, Steven Koehn and Ray Brown, and great granddaughter, Priscilla Miller; ten brothers, and six sisters.

She is survived by five children, Everett Cayot of Canton, Oklahoma,  Martha and Percy Brown of Cleo Springs Oklahoma,  Marilyn Cayot of Ardmore, Oklahoma, Wayne and Mary Cayot of Okeene, Oklahoma and John and Xylia Cayot of Fairview, Oklahoma; thirteen grandchildren, fifty-nine  great grandchildren, and two sisters, Alta Lively and Christina Aylett both of Texas.

A memorial service for Maurine will be held at a later date.  Arrangements are by Lanman Funeral Home, Inc. of Helena.  www.lanmanmemorials.com  Facebook: Lanman Funeral Home Inc.