Myrna Bingham

Myrna Bingham of Cotter, Arkansas, passed away in her home on August 8, 2025. Through her 80-year journey, she touched many hearts and lives with her unique ideas, her vast knowledge, her frugality and yet selfless generosity with others, her humor, and her genuine love and compassion. Myrna was renowned for her advice. Before Google or A.I., there was Myrna.

Myrna was born in Rupert, Idaho, on October 25, 1944, to Wm. Harvey and Venna (Hyde) Bingham. She grew up in Idaho and Utah. She graduated from Ben Lomond High School in Ogden, Utah and then attended Weber State University. After college, she met Elden Nihsen, who was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. They married and made a home in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they raised two children.

In their children’s early years, Myrna worked at home as a seamstress and a tailor, designing, creating, and altering clothing from go-go dancers’ outfits to office attire to wedding dresses, fancy gowns, and homespun gifts. Her sewing room was a buzz with creativity, fabrics and notions strewn about, and never enough storage. It was her happy place.

Once their children started school, Myrna went to work a mere block from their home, at Shaver’s Grocery, manning the customer service counter. From there, she moved onto secretarial work at Nogg Bros. Paper Co. Between sewing, gardening, cooking, cleaning, working outside the home, and raising children, she managed to study and earn her stock broker’s licenses. She then went to work as a stock broker in Regency, Nebraska, at a time when there were very few women in the business.

After 20 years of marriage, Myrna and Elden divorced, but remained amicable. A year later, Myrna left the stocks and bonds behind and went to work as a diamond repossession agent manager, then a bookkeeper and office manager. At work, she ran into an old acquaintance, David Indvick. The two eventually dated and then married.

Cold Iowa winters didn’t agree with Myrna’s Rheumatoid Arthritis, so they moved south to Mountain Home, Arkansas. There, she worked as a legal secretary for Terry Poynter, a prominent attorney, until her retirement. By then, she had divorced again and moved to Cotter, Arkansas, where she fished and canoed the White River every chance she could. She loved the area so much that she bought a second home and rented out the first.

Shortly after that move, her father, who loved technology and held three engineering degrees, began showing signs of Alzheimer’s. Myrna packed her bags and headed to Oregon to care for her dad. They spent a year there finalizing legalities before moving him to Cotter, where she continued to care for him until he required specialized nursing. Myrna adored listening to her dad play instruments and sing to the other nursing home residents until his death at 95 years of age.

While her dad was in the nursing home, she bought the Masonic Lodge in Cotter and made it her home. She finally had a kitchen large enough for all her gadgets and a sewing room big enough to contain her vast supply of fabrics, machines, and notions. Her creativity kept her sewing room in chaos, just how she liked it.

With all that room, she hosted American Legion meetings at her home and was a proud member of the American Legion Auxiliary, serving as Unit 23 President. It was in those meetings that she met another wonderful friend who also loved to sew and do crafts of every kind. They started a group and it grew. They met every Wednesday and worked on their crafts, sewing, and quilting, while sharing ideas and their love for community. Together, they made memories, and quilts to honor veterans, clothing for shelters, quilts for babies, beds for shelter animals, and even pouches for kangaroos.

Years of smoking caused emphysema and COPD. Not being able to breathe, she finally quit smoking for good, not that she wanted to. Soon, Myrna was tied to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day. It slowed her down, but didn’t stop her. She continued to bake, craft, sew, quilt, and host “the girls” every Wednesday.

She was gifted and talented in so many ways. She had the innate ability to truly connect with people and value them as they were. She also had a way with animals. Each time she moved, more critters would show up at her door; birds, deer, a bobcat, prairie dogs, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, stray dogs, and the cats, so many cats. Squirrels ate from her hands. Hummingbirds landed on her fingers. And the cats told all their cat friends that Myrna was a pushover for that sad, hungry look.

Myrna was such a bright star in so many lives. When you look up at the night sky, you’ll find her there, because, of course, she was a night person who rarely got up before noon. She will be greatly missed.

She is survived by her children, Nichola (Paul) Reed, and Rory Nihsen; her grandchildren, Michael Reed, Chas (Jessie) Reed, and Cody Nihsen; her great grandchildren, Lincoln, Elias, and Griffin; her siblings, Veann, Lorna, Brad, and Lesli (John), and many more friends and family and those whom she regarded as family, and all those feral cats.

In lieu of flowers or if you wish to make a donation, Myrna would ask instead that you please consider doing something nice for someone else without them knowing it and/or adopting a stray cat. We are holding her Celebration of Life on her birthday, Saturday, October 25, 2025, at the Masonic Lodge, 517 Second St, Cotter, Arkansas from 12:00 to 4:00. If you knew her, you know you’re invited.

By happy coincidence, Cotter’s Annual Block Party will follow from 4:00 to 7:00 at 115 McLean Avenue, yet another reason Myrna loved Cotter.

Arrangements are by Kirby and Family Funeral and Cremation Services - Mountain Home, Arkansas. Visit an online obituary and guestbook at www.kirbyandfamily.com.