Nancy Ann Ornelas

1939 - 2024

On Thursday, January 18, 2024, at about 7:00 pm Eastern Time, Nancy Ann Marie (Welty) Ornelas, age 84 years, passed away in Shands UF Hospital, Florida. She was born February 17, 1939.

After previously raising her family in Wheatland, Marysville and Rio Oso, California areas, from 1963 to 1988, she last lived in Rio Oso, for about ten years after her husband died in 1986, before moving to New Lebanon Center New York.

Having been a Jet Propulsion Laboratory secretary, Nancy married Lewis Austin Ornelas in 1963, and started a family in 1964, in Wheatland, CA. Later supporting her husband's electrical contracting business, and even later becoming a Realtor, a waitress and wrote for a man in New York State about his work of early American barn construction.

Late in life Nancy became involved in the writing and production of a play for the Lake City, Florida Senior Lifestyle Enrichment Center, called the "Chocolate Piano". The play was considered a huge success. We are told she was in the Lake City Reporter newspaper about the play.

Nancy met Art Joubert, now aged 94, at the Senior Center and they loved each other. They went out together often and perhaps more so after COVID, often enjoying the bowling alley with friends.

Nancy is survived by three children, Benjamin Ornelas age 59, Jonathan Ornelas 58, and Margaret Ornelas Talmage 53; also by three grandchildren, Cassandra, Amanda and Calvin; finally survived by three great-grandchildren.

Services will be by Holycross Funeral Home, (530) 751-7000, with viewing on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, from 4:00pm to 6:00pm at 486 Bridge Street, Yuba City, CA. Graveside service to be held on Thursday, February 1, 2024, at Fair View Cemetery, 1533 Pacific Ave., Rio Oso, CA, at 10:00 am.