Beaulah Kate Radney

Beaulah Kate Radney was born on July 11, 1921 in Waxahachie, Texas to Arthur and Bertha Wilson.She passed away on December 12, 2006 surrounded by her loving family. Infant son, Tremon Radney and daughter, Joyce McClain, four sisters and five brothers preceded her in death. Kate is survived by her husband of 67 years, Oliver Radney; daughter, Loretta and her husband Jerry Stroud; daughter, Sue and her husband Bob Lichtenberger; grandchildren, Stacey and husband Keith Johnson, Susan and husband Rick Foster, Todd and wife Laurie Bowden; great grandchildren, Brad and Sydney Johnson, Jordan and Hunter Foster, Taylor Kate Bowden.Also survived by sisters, Addie Smith, Betty Joiner and many other loving family and friends. Services will be Friday, December 15, 2006 at 1:00 P.M. at New Hope Funeral Home with Pastor Dan Newman officiating. Interment will follow at the Mountain Peak Cemetery in Waxahachie, Texas at 3:00pm. The family will receive friends Thursday, December 14, 2006 from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. This is a difficult day!No doubt about it.But it is also a day to celebrate.To celebrate the life of one of the happiest people we've ever been blessed to know.Beulah Kate would not want to be the cause of any sorrow.She was full of laughter and sunshine and should be remembered that way. The Early Years: She came from the humblest of backgrounds. She was one of 12 children!Now with all the first cousins we had growing up you can only imagine the Easter egg hunts. All of her nieces and nephews were always very dear to her.Her family by any standards was very poor financially.They were farmers and she worked in the fields alongside her brothers, sisters and mother and father from the time she was four or five years old.It was back-breaking work and the reality is that in later years she suffered agonizing pain at least in part as a result of that work. She and her siblings were always late starting to school in order to bring in the crops.She wore overalls to school because that was all she had.She once suffered the humiliation of not being able to play with the other little girls because she didn't have a dress.I've always wanted to find the one who did that and slap her silly.Children can be cruel sometimes and she told us that story not to gain sympathy, but to appreciate the things we had and to never tease or make fun of anyone less fortunate. I don't know if that story was true or not, but it worked on Joyce, Loretta and me and it also worked on her grandchildren.It still makes Stacey cry when she remembers it.I think it also gave her a resolve to make sure her children had some of the things that she never had, and there were times when I know it was a hardship for our family, but she always managed somehow.What her family lacked in monetary rewards they more than made up for with love and appreciation for one another, and what a wonderful legacy that's been to hand down to us.She fondly remembered that her Mother and Daddy always managed something for the children at Christmas.She remembered and spoke often of the gentleness of her Mother growing up and the many times as a little child she sat in her Father's loving lap and felt so safe and loved.The closeness they all shared lasted a lifetime.I can remember when she would get together with her sisters and laughter filled the house.They would sing and laugh and tell stories and act so silly and it was wonderful.When they were together they became young girls again and it was a sight to behold.I will forever miss that sight and the sound of her infectious laugh.Mother also experienced heartbreaking loss as a child when she lost a brother to a hunting accident and a little sister to disease, and at age 18 her beloved father.Soon after, she met the love of her life, Oliver Radney, but I'll speak more of that in a bit. As A Mother: I remember my mother saying once in later years that she wished she had accomplished more in her life.I was dumbfounded at her statement.She accomplished so much and all of it the truly important things.She was a devoted and loving wife for almost seven decades, and she made a wonderfully warm and loving home.I recall a friend of ours saying once what a joy it was to sit down at the table with the Radney's and break bread.Unexpected company could show up when the frig seemed bare and Mother would prepare the best meal seemingly out of nothing.As a mother, she has no equal.She took care of us and loved us and encouraged us even at times when it must have been hard for her.I remember that Mother didn't swim well, but she could dog paddle pretty good.Once we all went swimming on a vacation to Houston and Loretta and I who thought of ourselves as great swimmers, teased her because she was dog paddling.Well we must have overdone it a little bit because she started to cry.We felt so badly.To this day I feel badly about making that wonderfully sweet person cry and I know Loretta does too.She was always there for us...always.She was a beautiful woman both in physical beauty and inner strength.She made it a habit to always have her make up on and her hair stylish when she went out of the house and always for Daddy's arrival home from work.As many of you know even late in life she was fond of beaded and bejeweled clothing, including a pair of jeweled sneakers and cap.She was a cutie, no doubt about that.She was the sweetest, most tenderhearted woman I've ever known and she was also the strongest, maybe not in physical strength but in resolve, faith and virtue.She was a diciplinarian and when we misbehaved she would switch our legs. She always made the culprit go out to get the peach tree switch and you better not come back with some pitiful specimen.I suspect it wasn't always easy for her to have three teenage daughters and I know we tried her patience...Once we were too old to switch she would just get exasperated with us, take a deep breath and say "My God, I wish I had not gotten up this morning."That has become a mantra in all our families now, and I can still see and hear her saying that when one of us would get on her last nerve.She was a true LADY in every sense of the word, but she was never stuffy.She loved to laugh and have fun and never met a stranger.We always joked that if mother had to stand in line more than 30 seconds, she would make a new friend.She could talk to anyone about most nearly anything.She also had a stunning career.She spent many years working at Sears Roebuck where she started in the mailroom, lugging large heavy mail sacks and I'm sure they too added to the back pain she has endured for so many years.But she never complained, she stayed at it for 26 years and retired as head of her department and on the Executive's Check List, which meant she enjoyed all the same benefits as Vice Presidents, but more than anything, she was revered and respected by her peers and senior management and she loved her work and felt a true sense of accomplishment from it.She did all of this and at the same time cared for her sweet, aged mother.One of the saddest days of Mothers life was when she admitted our Grandmother to a nursing home because she could no longer care for her in our home.Grandma spent almost 10 years there and I don't think Mother missed more than a handful of evenings going to visit her.She had to be sick herself to miss going.She would come home from work, prepare dinner, make a plate for Grandma and take it to her.She was devoted to her care and well-being. Mother spent her life in service to the Primitive Baptist Church that she so dearly loved.It was rare indeed for her to miss a Sunday.She supported the church with her time, money, labor and undying love.Her Church family has always been a great part of her life and a great solace to her during difficult times.Brother Dan Newman and his wife Jean have been like family to her and brought her much comfort over the years.We are all so grateful for that. Grandmother: No one can speak of Mother without talking about her in her most glorious and enjoyable role and that was as Grandmother to Stacey, Susan and Todd.She was the epitome of the word Grandmother; just ask any one of those three.They each have wonderful memories and stories to tell.We would all get together as a family at her house and we would miss Mother.She would be in the back room playing school with the children and she was always the student, or she would be outside playing ball or frisby with them.She would read and sing to them and always included the Indian Song."We have mothers in the prog na la la, from the ne I rey, to the nishy nishy fa, go thrilly in the prog na la la".It's a song from her childhood and we always teased her about that too but loved her for singing it.[We got her to sing it from her hospital bed once as she was taking a breathing treatment with an instrument that resembled a peace pipe and she and we all laughed and enjoyed it so much.]She always had pudding mix in all the favorite flavors for the kids to make when they visited because they liked to cook in her kitchen, and on Friday nights when all the grandchildren were there she would drive the rounds to all the fast food joints to get what each of them wanted for supper, and of course they all had to go to different places.She did it because she enjoyed them that much. It would take us forever to tell of those precious times and we still wouldn't get finished.She truly has left a lifetime of memories and stories for generations to come.She was there for all of them; from the time they drew their first breath, through the first day of school, all the way to college graduations, weddings and her great grand children. Everyone of the grandchildren and the grownups too got a call every year on our birthday from Mother and Daddy singing Happy Birthday.What a legacy she has left.She's left awfully big shoes for Loretta and I to fill and that's what we get for teasing her all the time. She's had the patience of a saint, the kindness of an Angel, and the energy of the Eveready Bunny. The Married Years: Mother and Daddy were married December 22, 1939 and for those of us who can't do quick math anymore, that's 67 years.I recently learned that on the New Year's Eve following their wedding, they went to a country dance and danced until the sun came up on New Years Day.What an astounding accomplishment!Both the 67 years and the dancing until the sun came up.But the most wonderful thing about it is that they still loved and respected each other after all those years.They still held hands and were deeply devoted and they still danced given the opportunity.I remember them on the dance floor at Todd's wedding not so long ago.We learned very early growing up that we couldn't play one parent against the other.Their bond was too tight for such shenanigans.They had the sort of relationship that went way beyond us.They would look affectionately at each other and we knew they shared a closeness that we were not a part of, and if you really wanted to get on their bad side, just say something unkind about the other and you would find out right quick that that dog was not going to hunt.Loretta, Joyce and I had a most unique childhood though I didn't realize it until I was much older...our parents loved and respected us and they loved and respected each other!How rare is that today?I thought all homes were that way...Not so!I remember watching them dance together and they were good too!We loved hearing stories about how they met, why they eloped and we couldn't, and then later when they were in the Navy during the war.It seemed like a storybook to us and in many ways it was.Oliver Radney was mother's hero in every sense of the word and she was his "Darling".The devotion they each had for the other is the stuff people write about and make movies about.They were best friends.Each would have laid down their life for the other.They truly did not know where they each ended and the other began.They were one, united for all time and each other's greatest blessing. They of course had difficult times, probably some us girls knew nothing about, but none so devastating as losing their first and last child.I cannot speak of the devastation of losing a child but I know it was their devotion to each other and their undying faith that sustained them.I am reminded of a song we used to sing in Church, "When We All Get to Heaven What a Day of Rejoicing That Will Be". Well Mother is rejoicing today! She told Loretta on Christmas Eve from her hospital bed a few years ago to remember all the good times? Well Mother, thanks for the memories!There is a lifetime of them and they and you will forever be in our thoughts and hearts. We love you and will forever miss you. Sharron Sue Radney Lichtenberger December 2006