Frances O Berkshire

She was born, Frances O’Harrow, on June 17, 1925 on a ranch in Schleicher County, Texas to Emma and William Hamilton O’Harrow. She rode her horse to a one-room school on Toenail Trail in Christoval, Texas with her friend, Frankie Edmonston. She lived on the ranch and helped her daddy until she moved to San Angelo, Texas. There, she met Robert Coe Berkshire when he was stationed at GoodFellow Air Force Base as a B-17 Instructor Pilot. They were married on December 22, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois.

They soon moved back to Texas and lived in Plainview and opened Berkshire and O’Harrow Trucking. After several years, they moved to San Angelo and then to Odessa in 1968, where she worked for Basin Air Drilling and then Red’s Casing Crews until she retired. After her retirement, she enjoyed several hobbies, including oil painting, but her passion was compiling many volumes of family and friend’s recipes with pictures and information and stories about each person who had contributed the recipe. She also loved genealogy. She researched several family lines; The Coes, the Kisingers, the O’Harrows and completed the Berkshires back to the 1450’s. She did research by going to Libraries and receiving information by letter or, in recent years by fax. She typed everything on an electric typewriter, never using a computer.

She loved her Grandchildren, Michelle and Jamie and enjoyed attending their activities and sports, usually in her high heels and pearls. She also loved her Naomi Sunday School Class at First Baptist Church, who called her their “Prayer Warrior.” If any of her girls had a need, or an illness, or a death, she was always on the phone letting the rest of the class know.

The loved ones who preceded her in death are her husband; Bob Berkshire, her father and mother, Emma and “Willie” O’Harrow; her precious grandson, Jamie Gladden and just recently her son-in-law, Ralph Gladden.

Survivors include her daughter, Barbara Berkshire Gladden; her son, Dr. James Berkshire; her granddaughter, Michelle Gladden Snyder and her husband, Reed; her great-grandchildren, Samantha Snyder, Tripp Snyder, and Drew Snyder; and many other relatives and friends.

Graveside services are scheduled for 10am Saturday, October 25, 2014 at Sunset Memorial Gardens with Rev. Curtis Brewer officiating.

Services are entrusted to Frank W. Wilson Funeral Directors.