Service: 11 a.m. Saturday, October 17, 2015 (visitation at 10 a.m.) in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; 5001 Altamesa Blvd, Fort Worth, TX. Visitation: 6pm to 8pm Friday, October 16 at Laurel Land Funeral Home. She will be buried with her husband, 10:15am, Monday October 19, Dallas Fort Worth National Cemetery.
Laurice was born April 14, 1936 in Arkansas City, Kansas to Julia Mary Kamees Swydan and Paul Ezber Swydan. Her family moved to Wichita when she was young and she lived out her childhood in Wichita. Laurice was fun loving and enjoyed people-it has been said that she never met a stranger. She was very musically talented and loved to dance. She was active in her church youth group-Christian Youth Fellowship and participated in the youth group production of the “The Robe”. She graduated from Wichita High School East in 1954 and went to Wichita University for a short time and then worked as a bank teller at a bank on McConnell Air Force Base where she met her beloved and handsome husband Bill Packer and his daughter Cynthia and they were married in 1960. They soon added a daughter Kathleen Jamel and a son William Johnathan to their family. The Air Force required their family to move often to many places and she had to raise her family much of the time by herself as Bill served 6 tours in Vietnam. She was wonderful at making new friends everywhere they moved and she was amazing at re-establishing her family and keeping the faith during the scary times that Bill was away. Laurice and Bill had the wonderful opportunity to care for many foster babies until they were placed with families. She was an amazing wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and her absence on this earth leaves us with much sorrow- she is greatly loved.
Laurice was preceded in death by her husband of 51 years William Amos Packer; her parents Julia Swydan and Paul Swydan and her grandson William James Cooper.
Survivors: children, Cynthia Pearl Packer and her husband James and their 8 children and 7 grandchildren, Kathleen Jamel Holyoak and her husband Joseph and their 6 children, and William Johnathan Packer and his wife Sophia and their 3 children. Her sister Rene Dempsey and her husband Russel and their children and spouses along with her brother Floyd Swydan.
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