Carol Delita Lusk

Carol Delita Lusk, 87, passed on to her reward on the morning of Sunday, December 22, 2024, in a Texarkana, Texas hospice facility. She was born in Texarkana, Arkansas on December 14, 1937, at the home of her grandparents. Descended from pioneer Texarkana residents John H. and Annie Eck Hunter, she was the first child of Raleigh Hunt Hughes and Carmelita Marie Sprague.

As a child during World War II, her parents moved to Portland, Oregon and Orange, Texas for work in the shipyards, but returned to Texarkana by the time the war ended. She attended Saint Edwards Catholic School until graduation and was elected the football queen her senior year. In 1959, she married Royce Lusk and gave birth to her three sons.

Delita, as she preferred to be called (family called her Dee Dee in her younger days) had a varied working career. She worked at the Texarkana Gazette until her first child was born, then on to the personnel department at Day & Zimmerman. After her last child, she decided to stay home and essentially ran a small home day care, raising several area preschoolers for a few years. Deciding to move back into the regular workforce, she went to Oaklawn Bank, Ark-Tex COG, and GTE. Upon remarriage in 1981, she moved to the Dallas suburbs and was the office manager for her new husband’s plating business. Eventually he closed the business, and she became a bookkeeper for Glazers Distributing. After about twenty years in the big city, she moved back to Texarkana and started her last job at Redwater ISD accounts payable. She taught religious education at church, and for extra income, she managed the Dixie Baseball concession stand for several years, where she made sure the kids who were not playing had tennis balls to throw against the wall.

Her hands contained a multitude of talents. She learned to sew as a teenager, and could knit, crochet, or whatever other methods could be used to make pretty much anything out of cloth, yard, or thread. She took a painting class at Stanhope’s in her early 30’s which began a lifetime of various other arts. After purchasing a kiln, she acquired hundreds of ceramic molds and created probably thousands of various breakables. Later, she began quilting and made many quilts for family and friends. Attending every festival and craft show she had a chance to see, she learned a lot of ideas and modified them to other crafts. Often, she would rent a booth to sell her work at shows but seldom sold items for enough profit to cover her costs. That was not important, she just enjoyed the people and atmosphere. She once sewed the uniforms for the entire Liberty-Eylau cheerleading squad. Many times, she would donate her crafts to a local organization to sell when they had some kind of fundraiser or silent auction, made baptismal garments for babies at church, and baby blankets for First Choice and the hospital. Overall, it is doubtful that she made a penny as opposed to her investment in her crafts. She was not a Rembrandt or Picasso, but she has countless items she has produced in quite a few area homes.

One of her favorite pastimes was gardening. She always kept her yard in immaculate condition, and in her eighties got involved with one of the local master gardener organizations. It was short lived, but this was one of her most enjoyed times as she combined her talents with community service. Also, for many years, she served the patrons food at the Saint Edwards Outreach Center at least once a week.

One of the most resilient people on earth, in her eighties she mowed her yard and the yards of a few rent houses with a push mower barefooted, then walked back in her house, propped her dirty black feet on the coffee table, and poured herself a glass of wine. She definitely liked her wine and always kept an ample supply at home for emergencies. Not too many years back after a canoe mishap on the Cossatot River, she walked through about a mile of dense woods back to a road. She emerged with her legs bloody, ripped from the stickers on the vines, made her way back to her cabin, and was soon laughing about the incident. She could also somehow live for a year on about twelve dollars.

Delita was predeceased by her parents and all of her direct and collateral ancestors. She leaves behind her three sons and their wives, Michael Royce Lusk (Teresa) of Texarkana, Gary Wayne Lusk (Amy) of Roswell, GA, and Kelly Hunt Lusk (Rochelle) of Texarkana. Also, her eight adult grandchildren Megan Prinz (Clayton), Shelby Lusk, Andrew Lusk, Mathew Lusk (Cassandra), Kaitlin Martinez (Eduardo), Zachary Lusk, William Lusk, and Colton Lusk cherish their memories of “Granilita.” In addition, she had two step-grandchildren, Zachary and James Hubrel. The next generation of great-grandchildren contains Gage Keeter, Eduardo Martinez, Jett Lusk, Archie Lusk, Francisco Martinez, Lily Lusk, and Carolina Martinez, plus two step great-grandchildren Hadleigh and Scarlett Hubrel, and she was immensely proud of all of them. In addition, she leaves behind her brother and his wife, Lonnie Joe and Linda Jane Hughes, and a special sister-in-law, Kay Lusk. She leaves her first cousins scattered from northwest Arkansas to the Texas gulf coast, and many others.

A rosary/visitation will be held at East Funeral Home Downtown at 6:00 pm on Friday, December 27. Mass of Christian burial will be at Saint Edwards Catholic Church at 10:00 am Saturday, December 28, with interment immediately following at Calvary Cemetery. It is her wishes that in her memory, instead of flowers, donations be made to Saint Edwards Outreach Center to help feed those in need.

Online tributes can be posted at www.eastfuneralhome.com.