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Mary Nelson “Mary Nel” Neville Sieman
Gallery Type
Anchor Exhibit
Location
Marble Hall | Prairie Arts Center
Donated By:
Mary Ann (Sieman) Strasheim
1910-2006
Mary Nelson "Mary Nel" Neville Sieman was the oldest daughter born to Morell Keith Neville and wife Mary Virginia "Marie" (Neill) Neville. Her father was the 18th Governor of Nebraska in 1917. Her father's father was US Congressman William Harriman Neville and her father's mother was Mary Ann "Mollie" Keith.
On December 28, 1935 she married Frederick William "Fred" Sieman of North Platte, Nebraska at Episcopal Church of Our Savior in North Platte. Fred was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 13 in 1923. Mary Nel and Fred Sieman made their home in Washington D.C. before returning to North Platte, Nebraska in 1938. They owned the Artificial Ice & Coal Company, later becoming Arrowhead Distributing, a beverage wholesale company. During WWII, she volunteered in North Platte's famous Canteen, giving food, drink, and cheer to military people traveling through on the train.
She attended both North Platte Nebraska public schools and St. Petersburg Florida public schools, then attending college at St. Petersburg Junior College; Sweet Briar College and the University of Missouri where she received her B. A. degree. In her adult years she continued to take educational classes at Mid Plains Community College in North Platte and Art classes at various workshops around the country.
In 1955 Mary Nel drafted the floor plans and designed their new home at 315 West Circle Drive in North Platte. The Neville family legacy lives on in the historic buildings of North Platte, that were originally part of the Neville holdings. Among them, the Pawnee Hotel, another the Fox Theater. The Fox Theater is now the Neville Center for the Performing Arts. At one time it might have been turned into a parking lot had it not been for the generosity of the Neville sisters. In 1980, the sisters gave the Fox Theater, built by their father in 1929, to the North Platte Community Playhouse as a memorial to their parents. The Playhouse conducted a fund drive to help pay for the costs of renovating the theater. With contributions and volunteer labor it became the Neville Center for the Performing Arts and the renovation earned the Playhouse a Governor's Arts Award in 1983.
