Abbie Lee Rauls

After being blessed with over 90 years of good life, with only the last year or so facing the struggles of declining health and deteriorating physical abilities, Abbie Lee Spakes Rauls passed from this life on earth in the presence of family on Sunday afternoon, February 5, 2023 in Reno, Texas.

For most of her life, she was known to the world as Mrs. Willie J. Rauls, but to her friends she was known as Abbie; and to some of her family, she was known as Aunt Abbie. She was especially known to her daughters, grandkids, and great grandkids as Mother and Grandmother.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 65 years, Willie James Rauls; her infant son, Danny Rauls; her father, Augustus Cloud Spakes; her mother, Lillie Doss Spakes; her brothers, Clemon, George, and James Spakes; her sister, Blanche Spakes Jacobs; her sons in law Kenneth Costephens, Lou Brown, and Larry Reeves; and her granddaughter-in-law, Shelly Reeves.

She is survived by her daughter, Phyllis Costephens of Grapevine; her daughter, Traunsa Reeves of Reno; her niece, Earlene Joyner of Chestnut, Louisiana who helped provide loving care in some of Abbie’s final weeks; her grandson, Kyle Reeves of Runaway Bay; her granddaughter and her husband, Vicki and Anton Russell of Azle; her granddaughter and her husband, Kathy and Scott Thompson of Colleyville; her great grandson and his wife, Will and Morgan Reeves; her great grandson, Wyatt Reeves; her great granddaughter, Maddi Moreno; her great grandson, Jake Moreno; her great granddaughter, Camille Thompson; her great granddaughter Vivienne Thompson; her great grandson, Pierce Thompson; and an expected great, great granddaughter, AbbieKaye Roper Reeves. She is also survived by her special friend and conversation partner, Johnny Box of Reno, as well as other family.

Abbie was born around Herbine, Cleveland County, Arkansas on December 14, 1929, grew up in a loving home on a farm, and married Willie in the home a local preacher in Warren, Bradley County, Arkansas on January 6, 1945, just about three weeks after reaching 15 years of age. Willie was about a year and half older at 16 years of age when they wed. Abbie and Wilie had first met about two years earlier at a Rauls family reunion at the home of Luther and Patty Rauls, the Spakes’s neighbors. While living in Warren in the early years of their marriage, Abbie and Willie welcomed their two daughters into the world. From Warren, they eventually moved to Kingston, Tennessee, where they met their lifelong friends, Mary and Howard Phillips. From Tennessee, they moved to Alabama, then back to Arkansas, and then on to Fort Worth in 1958. They stayed in the Fort Worth area the remainder of their lives.

She went to her death with love for and faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ as her savior from her sins. And she was thankful for Jesus’s life, death, burial and resurrection and his promise to return to this earth to take her, and all those who trust in him, into the kingdom of heaven.