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Anderson, Louella Elizabeth (Smalley) (1924-2015)
Anderson, Louella Elizabeth (Smalley) (-2015)
Obituary
2015
Louella Elizabeth Smalley Anderson was born at home on Dec. 22, 1924, to Willie and Violet Smalley in Sealy, Texas. Her birth came six years after World War I ended and five years be-fore the Great Depression began.
The Smalleys then lived on ranch land out near the current Sealy High School, and a walk to the Austin County Colored School occasionally meant having to cross a pasture and elude the bull in it. If she and her siblings got a lift into town, it was on their father's wagon. The Smalley's eventually moved into town, where Louella graduated from school. She married Leslie "Jim" Anderson on Nov. 29, 1943, at the Austin County Courthouse. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Sill, so the newly married couple moved to Lawton, Okla., and shared an apartment with another couple from Sealy. Louella returned to Sealy when she learned that she was pregnant with the first of the couple's 10 children. In order of succession, they are Leslie Jr., Maurice, Richard, Glenn, Rose, Steven, David, Lance, Cathie and Lewis. Neither husband nor wife ever learned to drive an automobile, but that didn't stop them from finding and maintaining steady work to support their family. Louella worked part-time as a house-maid, and Jim full-time as a carpenter. Seven of the couple's children went on to college and three served in the U.S. military. As children, they would often ask their mother's age and marvel at her reply: "16." They could never find a birth certificate to confirm this, and later in life when Louella went in search of her birth certificate, she found that one had never been recorded. Born when Calvin Coolidge was president, Louella would see 15 more U.S. presidents in her time, including the nation's first African-American president. Louella is welcomed into paradise by her husband, her sons Maurice and Steve, her grandson Maurice, her parents and her siblings Helen Jones, Willie Mae Robinson, Clarence Smalley, Melvin Smalley, Marjorie Womack, Gloria Johnson, and Vivian Daniels. She is survived by sisters Ora Lene Kesee and Evelyn Smalley, eight children, 22 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson. |
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Anderson
Louella Elizabeth (Smalley)
2015
31178
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