The Funeral

Mom passed away on December 14, 2011 and we had her funeral yesterday December 17th in Matador, TX which is in the county where she was born and raised as Grace Laverne Tilson. She was born on January 13, 1927 and raised in Whiteflat, TX which is down the highway about 10 miles. It is what you would call a ghost town now, not really anything left there but dilapidated buildings. It was quite the little town in its hey day though based on the historical marker on the highway! Here is the text of that marker. My Mom's Granddad, my great Granddad, is the W.R. Tilson mentioned. The buildings in the picture are the old Whiteflat school and the early day Methodist parsonage.

Whiteflat
This area of Motley County was first called "White Flat" due to the tall white needlegrass which covered the flat prairie land. A post office, named Whiteflat, was established for the rural settlement in 1890 at the request of W.R. Tilson.
At its height, the community boasted four grocery stores, three service stations, three garages, two cafes, a hardware store, two gins, and three churches. A school, first housed in a one-room schoolhouse built by volunteers, opened in 1890. It was replaced by a four-room school in 1908, and in 1922 a new two-story brick structure was erected. It also served as a community gathering place.

Dependent on an economy based on agriculture and small family farms, the community began to decline as a result of the depression and dust bowl years of the 1930s. The Whiteflat school closed in 1946, when it was consolidated with Matador schools. The local churches disbanded in the 1960s; the post office closed in 1966 following the death of the last postmaster, Ida Morris; and the last remaining retail business, a grocery store and service station closed in 1968.

Mom was so happy to move back to Motley County, she felt like it had such good Christian and small town values. In a small town you are never alone. So I was sad and disappointed that not many showed up for her, but I was very thankful for those that did. Over the years I have noticed that those people have always epitomized the Christian and small town values Mom loved so much. You know who you are and I love you!

All seven of her kids traveled many, many miles combined to be here and that I am sure made her so happy. We had a wonderful time catching up and sharing stories about Mom.

We had the funeral at the Methodist Church in Matador and Pastor Bill did an excellent job on her service even though he did not know Mom. She had been sick and out of circulation too long for him to have had a chance to meet her. I was so happy that he was the one God put in our path when we were unable to get the Catholic Diocese to find us a Priest. Mom was raised Methodist anyway plus having the service there we were able to make it more personal, something we cannot really do in the Catholic Church so I was happy.

Annette Hollingsworth read the poem in my previous post and my sister Laverne read the Eulogy that her daughter Dana wrote. I will post it in the next post as a separate entry.