Katie Ilene Behrens

Katie Ilene Behrens of Groesbeck, was called home to be with the Lord, on Wednesday, April 6, 2011, at Limestone Medical Center. She was 83. Visitation will be Thursday, April 7, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the Groesbeck Funeral Home. Services will be at 2:00 P.M. on Friday, April 8, 2011, at the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel, officiated by her nephew, Reverend Joe David Sandifer, of Antioch Baptist Church of Bellmead, and Reverend Daryl Hatley of Bethel Baptist Church of Groesbeck. Burial will follow at Lost Prairie Cemetery. Pallbearers will be grandsons, Patrick Behrens and Andrew Hirsch, and nephews, James Sandifer, Kenneth Freeman, Marcus Sandifer, and Joseph Sandifer. Katie was born March 22, 1928 in the Prairie Point Community, to William Monroe Sandifer and Ora Cynthia (Lansford) Sandifer. Growing up, the family also lived in Lavender, Lost Prairie and Fair Oaks, and while Katie finished her senior year at Fair Oaks, she considered herself a Groesbeck Goat graduate. After high school, she worked in Waco where she lived with cousins, until moving to Houston in the fifties and going to work for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. She met her future husband there, and was united in marriage with C. F. (Fred) Behrens in 1959 at Houston. She took a few years off from the telephone company while raising her children, during which time she drove a school bus. She returned back to work for Southwestern Bell as a long distance operator, then in dispatch, and later in the assignment office, until retiring on June 30, 1983. After retiring, Katie and Fred moved to Lake Livingston on the waterfront, where they loved fishing and taking their grandchildren on pontoon boat rides. After Mr. Behrens passed away on November 21, 1986, she continued to live at the lake until 1997, when she moved to Groesbeck to be near her family. She had a house built in Groesbeck, became a member of Bethel Baptist Church, and met a local man, Herbert Wilson, with whom she became close friends. They enjoyed several years of companionship attending church together and other local events, eating out, and visiting friends and relatives, until he passed away in 2009. Mrs. Behrens was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Fred Behrens; a brother, Dilton Sandifer; nephew, Leonard Sandifer; and close friend, Herbert Wilson. She is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Martin and Linda Behrens of San Antonio; daughter, and son-in-law, Cindy and Larry D. Hirsch of Tomball; grandson Patrick Martin Behrens and wife, Amber of Houston; granddaughter, Amanda M. Hirsch of Grapevine; grandson, Andrew A. Hirsch of Austin; granddaughter, Jenna K. Johnson; two great grandchildren, Kaylee Michelle Behrens and Logan Patrick Behrens; brother and sister-in-law, J. T. and Bobbi Sandifer of Forest Glade; and sister-in-law, Ella Jewel Ware Sandifer of Marlin; and numerous Lansford and Sandifer family members in the area. Donations may be made in Katie’s memory to Bethel Baptist Church of Groesbeck or Antioch Baptist Church of Bellmead.