Betty Edwards Fowler

Betty Edwards Fowler (Mrs. James McFarland Fowler, Sr.), longtime Houston resident, passed away on Tuesday, the 10th of June 2014 at the age of 87. She was born on the 8th of January 1927 in Mansfield, Louisiana to Louis Wallace and Lula Mae Roberson Edwards.

At the age of 3, her family relocated to Houston. Betty and her sister, Roma, left high school during World War II to work for the Navy Department at Brown Shipyard, where she learned to operate a switch board. Following the war, she returned to graduate from Milby High School. With her training from the Navy Department, Betty became a PBX switchboard operator where she worked for AT&T and later McIlvoy & Rockwell Manufacturing Company until 1965. After being widowed in 1969, Betty went to work for the Shamrock Hilton Hotel as a house keeping executive until 1973.

Betty was a member of the Republican Women’s organization, Baylor Women’s Health Committee, the United Methodist Church. She was a past member of The Briar Club, Houston and Meadowlakes Country Club, Marble Falls, Texas. Betty loved people, birds, flowers, beautiful clothes music, theater and travel. She was also an accomplished ballroom dancer.

A devoted mother, wife, daughter, sister and grandmother, her legacy lives on within us all. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sisters, Opal Easterly, Audrey Harvey and Roma Edwards; her former husband and father of her children, Nelson Lee Smith Jr. in 1988, husbands, Burlan E. Ellison in 1969 and James McFarland Fowler Sr. in 1997; her son, Nelson Lee Smith III. She is survived by sons, James R. Smith, Wayne L. Smith both of Houston; granddaughter, Lynn Smith Bodin of Katy; her double first cousin, Eursle R. Jackson of San Antonio; her step-children, James M. Fowler Jr., Sheila Bludworth, Malcolm Fowler and Walter Fowler. Other survivors include three great-grandchildren, one niece, five nephews and her devoted four legged companion, Prissy.

Friends are cordially invited to a visitation with the family from five o’clock in the afternoon until seven o’clock in the evening, on Friday the 13th of June in the parlor and grand foyer of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.

A memorial service is to be conducted at twelve o’clock noon on Saturday, the 14th of June in the Jasek Chapel of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, where her grandnephew, Christopher Henderson, Worship Minister of First Colony Christian Church of Sugar Land, Texas is to officiate. Immediately following all are invited to greet the family during a reception at a venue to be announced at the service.

Prior to the service, the family will have gathered for a private interment at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston.

In lieu of customary remembrances, memorial contributions may be directed to the American Cancer Society Houston Office, 6301 Richmond Ave., Houston, TX, 77057; or the Alzheimer’s Association, P.O. Box 96011, Washington, DC, 20090.