Otha Leroy ("Pete") Nelson

Otha Leroy Nelson was born on June 21, 1942 in Yazoo county, Vaughan, Mississippi. He was the third child of Percy and Gladys Dortch Nelson. He confessed Christ during his pre-teen years and attended Plainville A.M.E. Church in Vaughan, Mississippi. He was educated in the public-school system in Yazoo county – attending Wilburn and W. C. Day elementary schools and Linwood High School where he graduated in 1962. He studied auto mechanics at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi for one year before moving to St. Louis, MO in 1963. He gained full time employment at the Green Foundry Co. He later worked at the St. Louis Army Ammunition Plant during the Vietnam War, locally known as the Chevrolet Shell Plant. He subsequently found long-term employment at General Motors Corporation, where he retired in the mid 1990’s, due to poor health. 

Otha (Pete or Peter Man) was generous and congenial with family, neighbors and friends. He loved dancing and modeling clothing. He also loved animals and cared for his horses and pigs, in his youth and his dogs and cats as an adult. 

While living in St. Louis, he was a member of the True Vine Church of God, pastored by the Rev. Robert W. Nelson, II, his brother. 

Otha was preceded in death by his parents and his oldest sister, Mildred Allen. He departed this life on May 15,2020. He is survived by his siblings: Otis Nelson and his wife, Laura (Somerset, NJ); Rev. Robert Nelson II and his wife, JoAnn (Florissant, MO); Barbara Jean Gray and her husband, Y.T. (Yazoo, MS); David Nelson and his wife, Elizabeth (Saginaw, MI); Helen Pepper (Jackson, MS); Patricia Nelson (Greenwood, MS); Jacqueline Ratliff and her husband, Preston (Greenwood, MS); Percy K. Nelson, III and his wife, Tabatha (Leland, MS); and Hubert Nelson and his wife, Patricia; (Yazoo, MS); along with numerous nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives.

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