A beautiful person
April 23, 2008 (Wednesday)
Today I am in Waco to conduct the funeral service for Myra Shipper, 93-year-old aunt of my wife, Wanda. Dianna Hinze, my daughter, is with me.
Aunt Myra had one daughter, June, who has faithfully stayed by her mother’s side as a constant companion. Both of them retired from teaching in the public schools. June is a very gifted singer, talented and skillful violinist, taught music in the schools and is a member of the Waco Symphony Orchestra.
Aunt Myra loved her daughter, her brothers and sisters (all now deceased), her nieces and nephews and their families. She was a talented person who loved the Lord and served others. Her death marks the passing of a family of four brothers and three sisters. Their family name was Holliday and they all grew up in Nevels Prairie, near Crocket, Texas. All of them became ladies and gentlemen who made many contributions to their world. They will all be missed.
The service will be held at the Austin Avenue Methodist Church in Waco, where Don Scott is the pastor and the two of us will conduct the service together. Then I will go with the family to Kosse, Texas, where I was once pastor, for the burial service. Aunt Myra’s husband, Bill, is buried there and I conducted many services in that cemetery. It is not very far from Lake Limestone, where Wanda’s brother and sisters live, and where Wanda grew up. The Oletha Baptist Church is near the lake, and that’s the church where I was ordained in 1951 and where I was pastor. That’s where Wanda and I got to know each other better – so well, in fact, that we married.
So, this will be a day of going down memory lane, as well as celebrating the life of a great woman who loved the Lord and her family, and who left her mark in the lives of many young people who called her, “teacher.” A generation has passed. We miss them all.