Nathalie Devenport Manning

Obituary and Eulogy

(Delivered, Oct. 19, 2020, by Daughter, Melissa Manning)

Good afternoon. On behalf of the family, I’d like to thank you all for coming today to celebrate our Mom, known as Dickie by her friends.

Nathalie Devenport Manning was born May 28, 1923, in Wellington County, Texas, and died October 12, 2020, at Methodist Hospital in The Woodlands, at the age of 97 due to COVID-19. Dickie was a longtime resident of La Porte, Canyon Lake, and most recently, Spring, Texas. She was the daughter of William A. Devenport and Weltha Braboy Devenport of Wellington, Texas.

She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband Robert C. Manning, her infant son, Michael Ray Manning, her brother Joe Devenport, her brother Dean Devenport and his wife Betty Devenport; and son-in-law Robert E. Johnson, among many others.

She is survived by her son Bill Watson and wife Linda Watson of Lake Whitney; daughter, Marilyn Watson Johnson of New Braunfels; daughter Melissa Manning of Spring; daughter Melinda Manning and life partner, Sandra Cruthirds of Houston; brother Gene Devenport and sister-in-law Sue Devenport; brother-in-law Bill Manning of Chimney Rock, Colo.; niece Marianne Warfield Doran and husband John Doran of Kerrville, niece Anita Manning Goldmann and husband Jergen of Chimney Rock, Colo., and Susan Manning of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Dickie was blessed with eight grandchildren—Kristi Watson Scates and her husband Aaron; Apryl Watson Jordan and her husband Steve; Robert “Chris” Johnson and his wife Patti; Dona Johnson; Kelsey Manning Gleason, Mackenzie Gleason Manning, and Kenley Gleason Manning. Mom welcomed eight great-grandchildren-Macie Scates, Isabel Scates, Kodie Johnson, Dylan Johnson (and partner Alyssa Collins); Luke Johnson, Alyssa Johnson, Garrett Jordan, and Jackson Jordan. She also welcomed three great-great grandchildren, Kylie Johnson, Boston Johnson, and Camden Johnson.

Along with her family, Dickie was rewarded with many dear friends, and their families, including several of whom who are present today including Jerry Lawrence of Jasper, Texas; Karen Howard of Houston, and Loyce Young of La Porte. Others she cherished included Kathy Barnes (deceased), her husband Jim Barnes of Canyon Lake, Texas, and their daughters Gina Barnes Pool, Molly Barnes and Polly Barnes; Sylvia Barrios of New Orleans, La.; Chuck Prouix and Nancy Powlas of San Antonio, Texas; and Joann and Bill Morgan of Austin, Texas.

Dickie was a loving Mother, Granny and Great-Granny, but was far from conventional. She had a charismatic, unique personality that drew people of all ages to her like a magnet. She was always the life of the party. If you heard laughing and music, you found her holding court. For her 95th birthday and today, she wanted her favorites—a mariachi band and tequila, which of course, she got. The band today, Los Diamantes, played for her 95th, and we are fortunate to have them again to honor her today with some beautiful music, mostly happy songs, because she wanted this to be a celebration, not a sad day.

Momma loved to drink tequila, specifically Jose Cuervo. Back in the late 70s, she had a nickname and matching T-shirt that read “Tequila Sheila.” We will be toasting her memory later.

She was quick with a laugh, joke or smile, and was a legendary prankster and storyteller. Even when she was well into her late 90s, she was prone to say with a laugh, “I can’t hear, I can’t see, but my mouth still works.” It did, and at her age, Momma had few filters. She spoke her mind, and those around her loved her honesty and quick wit. You always knew where she stood, and her mind was sharp. She loved learning and read constantly--she was interested in the world. She was a football fanatic (her teams included the Houston Texans, New Orleans Saints, the Green Bay Packers and ANY team playing the Dallas Cowboys), and her knowledge of the game was unmatched. She studied the NFL teams, players and their stats, and spent hours reading sports magazines and newspapers, and taking notes so she could place her bet on the weekly football survivor pot. Anyone with any sense knew not to bet against her.

Dickie was a feisty West Texas girl raised during the Great Depression who came of age during WWII. She was a member of the Greatest Generation, a selfless, self-sufficient lot, accustomed to sacrifice and working toward the greater good of our country. We could use many more like her today.

Like her father, Momma was born in the Devenport family ranch house located on Buck Creek, in a tiny town no longer on the map, called Loco. Dickie liked to say she was the only person she knew who was born Loco to start.

Mom had few material possessions as a child, but she said she always had fun and found something to do on the ranch. In her case, mischief was often involved. One time, she and a playmate decided to fill her mom’s washtub with a large turtle they’d found in the creek. The two girls, about age 8, could barely manage the heavy turtle squirming in the tub, but eventually got him into the house. From there, Mom decided for fun they should hide the turtle under the bedcovers of the old German cowhand who lived with them.

Once the man found the turtle, he started cursing in German at the girls who, anticipating the punishment they had earned, had already escaped and taken refuge in the plum trees. Mom said they had to stay there for a long while until her mother cooled off and forgot, so they wouldn’t get a whipping.

Tall and strikingly beautiful with jet-black hair and her signature red lipstick, Mom was a showstopper—a natural beauty, but never pretentious. She knew how to ride a horse, shoot a gun, catch a fish, field-dress a deer, and cook on a camp stove.

She was truly fearless—she was the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and though she faced many challenges and heartaches in life, she never complained. Mom just got on with what needed to be done. At 14, she lost her mother to cancer. Married at 17, she had Billy in 1944, and Marilyn in 1946. Her first husband filed for a divorce when she was just 26, at a time when divorce was a social stigma—particularly for women.

When she was living in Port Lavaca in 1953, a friend asked her if she and another girlfriend would go on a double-blind date with two fellows from New Mexico who were new to town. Mom objected at first, but then agreed and the two couples went out. Mom hit it off with the short guy named Bob Manning (he was 5 foot, 5 inches tall and Dickie stood 5 foot 10 inches tall). Bob was tan, blonde-haired, and sang to her in Spanish.

The couple started dating and married in Reynosa, Mexico, Oct. 27, 1954, which started Momma’s love affair with both Bob and all things Mexico. Bob, our Daddy, was an instrument fitter employed by Brown and Root, and the family moved around many times in their early years following construction jobs.

After a few years in New Orleans, the family moved back to Texas, this time to La Porte. In 1959, Momma gave birth to their first child, Michael Ray Manning, but he was born with a heart defect and died a few hours after birth.

The couple soon decided to purchase a drive-inn grocery, which was renamed Manning’s Drive-Inn Grocery. Located on the way to Galveston, the store sold beer, bait, ice, and tackle, as well as a variety of groceries and deli meats. Momma also cooked meals in the kitchen.

In 1965, at 42, Momma was surprised to learn she was pregnant, despite the fact her tubes had been tied. She gave birth to twin daughters, another surprise, since the doctor had said she was having a boy. She didn’t know she was having twins until she went into labor. Widowed at 55, she outlived Daddy by 41 years. Despite that, she continued to run the family drive-inn, raised her twin daughters, and saw us through college.

Dickie held court at Manning’s Drive In from 1964 to 1984 and had many friends and regulars who stopped in for a beer after work. She often played pranks on her regulars—it was expected.

A certain customer, known to be “tight with his money,” as Momma would say, came in one afternoon and asked for a beer. Momma told him the price had been raised from 50 cents to $1 a can. Upset about the increase, he said he wasn’t going to pay more than 50 cents and wanted a beer when he returned from the men’s room. So, Momma waited until he returned then opened his favorite beer. She turned it up and drank half of it and set it down in front of him and said “There’s your 50 cents worth!”

Her impact in the neighborhood was lasting. Many of the regulars who came to Manning’s considered it a second home, and when she closed in 1984, several asked her where they could go—there would never be anyplace as special as Manning’s. What they meant was, it was going to be hard not to see her welcome them every day and hear her tell a joke or make them laugh. Dickie WAS Manning’s.

Her customers and friends felt lost, and today we feel that loss as well. I know there will be days I will want to pick up the phone to hear her tell me she loves me and read me a new joke or cartoon she cut out of the paper and saved just for me.

Mom loved the outdoors, but especially hunting and fishing. In 1974, she set a record in West Texas for the biggest buck-16 points, and the men in our family wouldn’t speak to her for weeks. Mom would go to the deer stand, like any sensible woman—equipped with her rifle, shells, binoculars, knife, a thermos of coffee, biscuits with sausage and onion wrapped in foil, magazines, and a roll of toilet paper. Sometimes she had both of us twins in the blind as well. It was a production, and if nature called, everybody was down the ladder and out. Sitting quietly for hours was out of the question.

The men in the family were purists of course, they had the essentials—a gun, shells, binoculars, knife and thermos. They couldn’t understand how Dickie, with all her stash and noise, could attract a deer to the blind, much less shoot it. But Mom said the deer were drawn by the smell of the onions on the heater in the blind and were curious as to what was going on up there.

On another occasion, Mom and Jean Smith, her longtime friend and accomplice, stopped on the side of the road in South Texas to help a banker from Victoria. The man, who had never hunted, had killed a deer but didn’t know what to do with it, and had flagged them down. Incredulously, Mom asked “You shot a deer and don’t know how to dress it?” Mom’s friend Jean told the man her friend Dickie was good at dressing a deer. Mom agreed to dress the deer for him, but he’d have to share the liver because that was her husband’s favorite.

Mother loved to tell that story and would always laugh because word had traveled quickly in their small town about the “girls who had to help that banker dress his deer on the side of the road.” She doubted that man ever lived it down.

Another time, she and Jean killed a buck and decided as a joke to put it in the bathtub, propped with its antlers back, Ray Bans on its face, a cigar sticking out of its mouth and a beer bottle on the side of the tub. When Jean’s husband Bill came home from work, he went straight to the shower to get cleaned up as he always did before supper. Mom recalled with a laugh that poor Bill nearly tore the door off the bathroom getting out of there. He ran buck naked into the kitchen cursing and hollering at the two culprits, while she and Jean fell out with laughter.

When she wasn’t hunting, Mom loved to fish, mostly saltwater, but anywhere she could get a bite. In her 70s, Mother was living for a short while in Virginia. She caught a fish in a pond there and set a state record for the largest brown trout. She was proud of that record too and had a photo to prove it.

Anyone who knew Mom, knew she loved eating hot peppers and was known to keep a stash in a Ziploc bag, sometimes stored in her bra. She would joke she had the hottest boobs in town!

Mom loved to travel, and we remember many trips in her custom ‘79 Chevy van. She loved Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” it was one of her theme songs, and she’d often sing it as we started a trip. On Monday, Mindy and I held her hands and sang a few verses to her as she passed away. We wanted her ready for her trip into Heaven, and what better start than a few words from Willie.

She particularly loved New Mexico. Our father was from Belen, and Mom had family in Hagerman and roots in Mountain Air and Taos. She loved Albuquerque and shopping for Navajo turquoise and silver jewelry on the square in Old Town. No matter the occasion, you never saw Dickie without her silver and turquoise, and for many years, she wore a silver Navajo cuff given to her by our Dad in 1954—it was one of her most prized possessions.

Mother’s grandfather Braboy was pure Kentucky Cherokee, and she was very proud of her American Indian heritage. Her jewelry was one way of celebrating that connection, and we, her three daughters, continue that tradition with pride.

Mom made friends wherever she went—her personality was bigger than life, and she never met a stranger! She taught us to care for others, the castaways, people down on their luck, the lonely, the forgotten. At most Thanksgiving meals, we often had at least two extra people joining us because Momma didn’t want people to be alone! Her attitude was, there is always room for one more at the table! It is something I try to remember today—a meal is meant to be shared.

In her 60s and 70s, she cared for numerous family members, friends and neighbors who needed care in their final months and days. She had difficulty these last few years acknowledging she needed help herself—she had always been the caregiver. Mom lived in several assisted living facilities and recently she was in a skilled nursing facility. We are grateful to the many nurses and caregivers who loved her and cared for her over the years.

Mom did not tolerate injustice or meanness. There was an empty lot across from our house on Pine Bluff which led to a street that took you to our elementary school. All the neighborhood kids used that path to get to school. One day, the man who lived on the other side of the empty lot had a fence built that blocked access to the road. As a result, that meant the kids would have to walk near the highway on the way to school, a much longer and dangerous route. This infuriated mother, especially since she often drove his son to or from school when we were in kindergarten together.

Mom talked to him and asked why he built the fence and why he hadn’t at least included a gate for the children to pass through. He said he didn’t want those kids walking in front of his house. Mom reminded him he didn’t own the street--it was a public road. As you might expect, his response didn’t go over well with her, which was bad news for him.

Furious, Mom went home, got in Dad’s truck, started it up and dropped it in gear. She drove straight across the empty lot at a good rate of speed and rammed right through that fence knocking it down. She then turned around and went right back home across the lot and into our driveway! Our Dad, in his usual what-did-you-do-now-Dickie-voice, just asked, “You used my work truck for that, right? The fence stayed down after that.

Mom was also a fierce protector of her kids and her family and had several weapons of choice when faced with confrontation. After my father died, we lived in the apartment above the store and one night, someone tried to break into the apartment. He had made it through the outer porch door and was now pulling on the front door, which had glass panes at eye level. Frightened, we stood there as the man tried to break in. Mom simply raised her double-barreled shot gun up to the window and pulled the curtain back. She told the SOB to come on in if he wanted, but if he did, she was going to blow his head off. Startled, he ran down the stairs begging her not to shoot. She never flinched.

Another time, Chris, her grandson, said four of us kids were sitting in the car after dark. Mom was locking up the store so we could go home. A drunk man pulled into the parking lot and got out of his car. He demanded she open back up and sell him a beer, but Mom said no, the store was closed. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and became belligerent.

She’d had enough. According to Chris, “Granny pulled her pistol out of the car and went all Dirty Harry on him and convinced him to leave.” You didn’t mess with Granny when she had her kids and grandkids in the car!

Even though she was known to use a few choice words, Mom did have her limits on profanity at the store, especially when women and children were present. She was forgiving on the first or second offense and would allow moderate offenders to rehabilitate themselves by dropping a quarter in the cuss jar she kept on the bar. Once in awhile, however, she had a slow learner who didn’t know when to shut his mouth.

On one occasion, a foul-mouthed fellow started dropping f-bombs and other words she didn’t tolerate, and she reminded him to please watch his language because she didn’t allow that kind of talk in her place where families were present. He apologized, but quickly went right back at it.

Again, she warned him and told him he’d have to leave if he kept on. He didn’t take the hint. Dickie had had enough. She grabbed a large, solid-steel Mercury hubcap off the bar that served as an ashtray, and hit him over the head with it, knocking him to the floor as ashes and cigarette butts went flying. When he got up, he was stunned. Dazed and still in disbelief, he asked her why she hit him. Mom said I warned you and you didn’t listen. He finally got the message and left. Most people realized Dickie meant what she said.

Mom missed her calling as an investigative reporter because if she knew you for five minutes, she would ask all about you, your people, where you lived, if you were married, etc. It didn’t matter if you were in the produce department at HEB. If you looked interesting to her, she was going to tell you so and start a conversation. She was fascinated by people and was always interested in connections. She’d often call me, tell me who she met at some store, and then tell me who they knew that I might know. Next, she’d give me their phone number and ask me to call them! As an 80 or 90-something, she could get away with that and not be considered a stalker. The rest of us would have been arrested!

Mom loved her family and was so proud of her children, her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. She told me often her biggest regret was she wouldn’t live to see what they would become because she knew they were destined to do great things. To you kids-the grands and the greats, she wanted you to know she loved you with all her heart, and to remember that, no matter what life throws at you, she wanted you to smile, to do your best, and to have fun every day. She wanted you to know that she promised she would be looking over you from above. She would appear as a redbird on the fence or maybe a roadrunner, but she’d always be there to watch over you.

She is our angel in Heaven, but no ordinary angel. We all know she is the Wild Angel, like the Martina McBride song of the same name. As we stand here today, she is likely giving God some insight on how things should be run, with Daddy and Bob Johnson, her husband and loyal, patient son-in-law, by her side, trying in vain to keep her in line. Good luck with that guys, your break is over.

Like she used to tell her kids all the time, “I’m not bossy, I’m just trying to help you understand what you need to do.”

Momma, you’d be proud to see your family and friends here today, smiling at your memory and the great times we shared because you were in our lives. Your mariachis are here to send you off in style, just like you wanted.

Because of the difficulties of this time, we know right now we can’t fully celebrate a life so well-lived by a girl with a heart as big as Texas. However, at some point, when it is safe, we will throw you one hell of a party. Don’t worry, we’ll be sure and bring the tequila, lime and salt.

We hope your ride to Heaven was smooth. We know family and dear friends were waiting there and have already welcomed you home. By now, you’ve found the local hangout, dropped some quarters in the jukebox, and dialed up some Willie Nelson and Ernest Tubbs, probably “Waltz Across Texas.” You’ve found your seat at the bar and ordered a round for the house. Drink one for us, Mom, and please save us seat, because we know wherever you are is where the fun will be.

Someday, we’ll be on the road again and we will join you. We will see you again. Until then, you’ll be with us forever in our hearts—our Wild Angel looking over us. Bless you, Momma, we love you always.

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Our mom, who was raised on a ranch in West Texas, loved Donkeys, Mules and Horses. In lieu of flowers, she would be thrilled if you would make a donation in her name to:

Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue (in San Angelo Texas)

Address: P.O. Box 216

Miles, Texas 76861

www.donkeyrescue.org

Please indicate that you are making the donation in honor of

Nathalie Manning

Address: for them to send the acknowledgement to the family

Mindy Manning, 910 Worthshire St, Houston, TX 77008