Ortha Cole Bickling, 90, of the Bowen’s Mill Community, in Ben Hill County, Georgia, died Thursday, August 20, 2015, at Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton, Georgia.
Funeral services will be held 2 PM, Tuesday, August 25, 2015, at The Paulk Funeral Home Chapel in Fitzgerald. Interment will follow in the Sandy Ridge Cemetery in Ben Hill County. The family will receive friends Monday evening, from 6 to 8, at the funeral home in Fitzgerald.
Mrs. Bickling was born October 18, 1924, in Sweet Hall, Virginia, to the late Frank Enoch and Bertha Jackson Cole. Mrs. Bickling served her country honorably as a surgical tech in the United States Army Air Corps. She was also a nurse at Dover Air Force Base and a librarian in Smyrna, Delaware. She had lived in the community for 21 years and was a member of Bowen’s Mill Christian Center. Mrs. Bickling enjoyed oil painting and arts and crafts.
She is survived by her husband of 68 years: Paul Bickling of the Bowens Mill community; a daughter: Paula & Roy Riojas of Fitzgerald; grandchildren and their spouses: Jeremy Paul Riojas & Shay of Byron and Aaron Roy Riojas & Alena of Douglas; great-grandchildren: Jacob Paul Riojas, Cole Buchanan Riojas, Lyndon Lashley and Zoe Joan Riojas; two brothers: Frank Cole, Jr. of Rhode Island and Ronald Wayne Cole of Cabool, Missouri and two sisters: Lois Jean Stanton and Joyce Elaine O’Neal, both of Sudlersville, Maryland. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by five brothers and one sister.