Iva Mae Yeager

Iva Mae (Worth) Yeager, a longtime resident of McGregor, passed away in Panama City Beach, Florida, on March 4, 2025, with family by her side. She was born on August 26, 1932, in Coffee County, Georgia, to Dan and Mae Worth. She was raised on the family farm with her three brothers and two sisters, where they raised animals and farmed cotton and tobacco. She helped work the fields and raise the animals and learned to appreciate an honest day’s work. She was baptized into the Christian faith at an early age. She loved her brothers and sisters and all of her extended Georgia family.

After graduating from High School in Broxton, Georgia, she moved to Atlanta with her sister Lucille, where she worked for the telephone company while waiting to get into nursing school. While there, she met the love of her life, James Otis (Jim) Yeager Jr., while he was stationed in the army at Columbus, Georgia. Nursing school would have to wait because they were soon thereafter married in Gatesville, Texas, on June 14, 1950. While Jim was in the army, they lived in Maryland, where their first daughter, Debbie, was born and where she developed a love for crab cakes. She then moved with her new family to Japan, where she developed a lifelong love for Japanese culture. After the army, they moved back to Texas, where she had three more children. While living in McGregor, she became very close to her in-laws, Otis and Mamie (Watson) Yeager, and she was very intrigued by Otis’s inventions. She would help him read his patents after his eyesight worsened. She also helped nurse his cancer after Mamie’s death.

She loved Texas and was proud to raise her family in McGregor, where she had a home for 40 years. She was a big McGregor football fan and loved to watch her son, Jimmy, play. Although she worked many years helping manage Jim Yeager & Co./Delta Brands, she believed that her most important work was raising her four children and taking care of family matters. Her greatest joy came from seeing her children and grandchildren graduate from college. She attended over ten college graduations.

She loved to go boating, and many of her weekends were spent with Jim somewhere on the water. They had boats on Lake Waco, Lake Whitney, and Lake Belton. They also had a condo on the bluff at Morgans Point. The best times of her life were out boating with Jim and the family. When Jim retired, they moved their boat to the Gulf at Panama City Beach, Florida, so that she could be with her baby daughter Lisa and take the grandchildren to watch the dolphins swim. They lived their dream life until Jim’s death in 2000. They had been married almost 50 years.

After Jim’s death, she continued to live in Panama City Beach for eight years, where she was finally able to spend more time with some of her children and grandchildren and do some traveling that she had always dreamed of. She visited a friend in France, cruised the Mediterranean with Lisa, went to Mexico City with Jimmy, skied with her grandkids, went to shows in Las Vegas, and shopped in New York City, to name some of her adventures. She was also able to attend the Worth family reunion and see most of her extended family.

She then moved back to Texas to be with her daughter Kaye, whose health was declining. While living with Kaye, she was able to visit most of her old Texas friends and the Yeager family. She was also able to attend the Watson family reunion. After Kaye’s passing in 2020, she returned to Florida to be with her daughter, Lisa, and her son, Jimmy, and be closer to most of her grandchildren and her Worth family, whom she shared a deep affection for, and was an honorary mother and grandmother to.

She was so very proud of her amazing, smart, and beautiful grandchildren. She was able to fulfill one of her greatest dreams to see her beloved grandchildren get married, many of them on the beach in Florida. She was also very happy that she was able to live long enough to have some beautiful great-grandchildren.

She loved to read anything and everything, especially books by Michael Connelly. She also loved to watch plants grow, especially starting from sprouts. She was smart and crafty, but, most of all, she was sweet and forgiving. She will be remembered most of all for her kindness and selflessness. She will definitely be missed by all who knew her.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Dan and Mae Worth; her husband, Jim Yeager; her daughter, Kaye McCollum; and her brothers and sisters, Willene Snipes, Lucille Quigg, Dan Worth, Al Worth, and Gene Worth.

Those left to cherish her memory are her children Debbie Matson, Jim Yeager, and Lisa Nowalk; her daughter-in-law Monica Yeager, and sons-in-law, Jim Matson, Jeff Nowalk, and Earl McCollum; her grandchildren Josh Matson, Alex Matson, Dr. Nathan Nowalk and wife Laurin, Morgan (Yeager) Berte and husband Adam, Hannah (Nowalk) Watson and husband Greg, Hayley (Yeager) Vaughn and husband Brock; and her great-grandchildren Leo Watson and Ellie Berte.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to the Alzheimer’s Association.