Lovable Lady

My brother started dating Lora Mae Linam after he returned from WW11. She became a Williams when they married on June 13, 1948. I was thirteen years old.

It was a small wedding at the home of Lora’s parents. I had a pretty new dress and felt very dressed up. I was watching and listening intently when I glanced at my sister. She had a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She appeared to be crying. Ladies and girls of that era always had a pretty handkerchief available. I pulled out my little lace edged hanky and puddled up too. When my sister saw my tears, both her hands covered her face. By the time the wedding cake was cut, I had recovered sufficiently to eat my share of the cake.

I did not know until many years later that my sister was not crying. She was stifling laughter. My brother had stumbled over the same words in the vows that my brother-in-law had trouble with when he and my sister married. This tickled my sister, and she was trying not to audibly laugh. When she observed my sobs, this was even funnier.

When I started dating Ken, my parents did not permit us to go out of town alone. Friday evenings in the fall included out of town football games. Ken drove me and various fellow band members to the games. Lora went as the adult in charge. She and Ken sat in the bleachers next to the band to watch the game.

After a playoff game with a Dallas team, it was late as we drove home. By the time we got to Fort Worth, no one in the car was awake except Ken and Lora. She was obligated to keep him awake. Ken took what he thought was a short cut to the highway that would take us to Breckenridge. They were talking and he did not realize he had made a mistake until the pavement ended and we were on a gravel road. Ken could see the highway on the left. He thought the gravel road might turn onto the highway. It did not. When it did turn, there was a gate in front of him. Ken opened the gate, drove across the ditch to the highway, and we were on the right road again. None of the sleepers woke up, and Ken drove on to Weatherford. Except for my brother, this was Ken and Lora’s secret for years.

Lora was a hard worker. She raised three children and held a full-time job. She went to the children’s extracurricular activities. She was active in her church and in community activities.

She was supportive of my brother when he worked long hours in the dairy business. When the dairy was sold, he had another private business which often kept him away from home. She kept the household running smoothly when he was gone. Her unfailing support continued when he entered politics. He had been a county commissioner for 23 years when he suffered a stroke in 1990. He was on a ladder changing a light bulb in an outside flood light on a rent house. Somehow, Lora managed to get him down without a fall. She took excellent care of him, often to the detriment of her own health, until his death.

Her chair is empty now.  She succumbed to cancer last week and was laid to rest beside my brother.