Lucy Olivia Ellis Vanness

Lucy Olivia Ellis Vanness passed away October 16, 2017, at the age of 85 in the house her late husband Charles Raymond Vanness built for them. After 60 years of marriage, Charley preceded her in death in May of this year. Lucy is survived by her seven children, eight grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.     

She was born on October 12, 1932, in Natchez, Mississippi when her parents John Hamilton and Harriet Boyd Ellis were living in Ferriday, Louisiana. Lucy spent most of her youth in Shreveport, Louisiana along with her older sisters Catherine and Hattie and younger sister Sue. After graduating from St. Vincent’s Academy, where she played high school basketball, she enrolled in Louisiana State University.

Lucy was working as a secretary in November 1956 when she met Lt. Charles Vanness, a young pilot stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base. He took her to an Elvis concert on their first date, and six months later they were married. Lucy was as devoted to her husband as he was to her. Together Lucy and Charley had three daughters and then four sons: Beth, Joan, LuAn, John, David, Philip, and Jeffrey.  Their children brought them sons- and daughters-in-law: Jim, Larry, Marianne, Elizabeth, and Elisabeth.  And in turn, their children gave them eight grandchildren: Hank, Olivia, Grace, Dylan, Ian, Emilie, Lizzie, and Lucy.

Over twenty years, she and Charley were stationed in Louisiana, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, England, and elsewhere. When they retired from the Air Force, they moved their family to Memphis in 1977. In 2014, they moved up the road to Millington.

For six decades, Lucy answered to the name “Mom.” She took primary responsibility for rearing seven children because her husband’s military service meant he was often not at home for weeks or months at a time. Her success required her to run the household exactingly. Her children had no doubt that they were being raised under the same rules from the oldest to the youngest (although it seemed that the younger ones got away with more). She never forgot to have dinner on the table or whose underwear belonged to which kid. There were few birthday parties, but there was always homemade chocolate birthday cake.

Always a practical woman, Lucy made sure her children got their childhood diseases at the same time whenever possible. Whenever needed, Mom could be counted upon to apply her secretarial skills to type up a book report or a term paper for her kids.

Her success meant she largely kept her own needs out of sight. Even with her husband serving in Vietnam in 1969, Lucy put her energy into caring for her growing family before letting her worries show. Somehow, no one can remember her taking a sick day from the time her first child was born until the youngest left for college.

A visit to the home Lucy made would reveal her interests to anyone. Her spacious sewing room was well-stocked, but you might not know she didn’t just make matching dresses for daughters, occasionally some shirts for her sons, and then all sorts of clothes and blankets for her grandchildren – she also created custom costumes for Halloween and school projects. You’d find a stack of dog-eared romance novels, but might not know her joy in swapping these books with her sisters and rating them. You could find her multitasking in front of the television with her sewing, her books, or a jigsaw puzzle, but over the years her taste in entertainment matured from soap operas to game shows to football to the Weather Channel.

In 2001, Lucy’s health and memory began their gradual decline but she remained “Mom” (and “Grandma”) becoming even more economical with her words and quicker with her opinions. Her illness never took away the honesty of her facial expressions or her ability to give a kiss. In time, just as she had been a caregiver to so many children, she gently accepted the care of her husband, her sons and daughters, and others in turn.

She will be missed as a mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend.  She was loved for the way she valued family, and those who love her will remember her as a strong-minded woman who laughed loudly from the heart.

Her memorial service will take place in Bartlett at the Memphis Funeral Home on Wednesday, October 25 at 10:00 a.m. with burial at Arlington National Cemetery alongside her husband at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.