Frances Merle Oates

Frances Merle Oates, of the Oletha-Old Union Communities, passed away on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at Providence Hospital in Waco following multiple courageous battles with cancer over the past several years. She was 80. Visitation will be Sunday, May 20, 2012 from 4:00 to 6:00 P.M., at the Groesbeck Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Monday, May 21, 2012, at the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel, with Brother Richard Williams and Brother Jimmy Phillips officiating. Interment will follow in the Old Union Cemetery. Merle was born on November 2, 1931, to Perry Newton Brown and Bertha Favors Brown at Oletha, where she grew up on the farm and learned how to work hard. She attended schools in Oletha and Thornton. Merle was united in marriage with Joe Glenn Oates on February 10, 1951, at a relative’s home in Richland. After living on a farm, raising cattle for the next eleven years, Merle and Joe and their four sons moved to Timpson in 1962, where he was a heavy equipment operator. Merle also worked with him, driving a bull dozer herself part of the time, as well as raising cattle, chickens, and their boys. After twenty-four years in Shelby County, the family moved back to Limestone County. Merle was ever the cattle rancher, with her cattle being one of her primary concerns, even in the last days of her life. She was devoted to the community in many ways, and involved her family and anyone else she could find in her projects, spending a lot of time in “behind-the-scenes” community and charity work. She was a “spark plug” in the Old Union and Cox cemeteries, serving as secretary for twenty-one years and maintaining the upkeep of the cemeteries and also the original Old Union Church of Christ building and grounds. She was determined in keeping the remaining group attending church at the original building up until the present time. Merle was deeply involved in genealogy, teaching herself to use a computer for her research records, as well as footwork at other cemeteries, and obtaining records from the Mormon church. She maintained an extensive knowledge of the community’s families and their history. She had the rare ability to locate lost unmarked graves, and she and her brother Joe spent many hours “cemetery stomping.” Merle loved devoting the past several years of her life to raising her great granddaughter, Kairi Oates. She was always ready to give out encouragement and wisdom to anyone when needed. Mrs. Oates was preceded in death by her parents, her sister, Helen Engram, and a son, Johnny Joe Oates. She is survived by her husband of 62 years, Joe Glenn Oates; three sons and daughters-in-law, Glenn Ray Oates and wife Laura of Center, James William “Bill” Oates and wife Barbara of Groesbeck, and David Wayne Oates and wife Georgia of Texarkana; five grandchildren, David Warren Oates, John Arthur Oates, Kenneth Joe Bowen, Billie Yvette Myrick and Matthew Oates; great granddaughter, Kairi Elizabeth Oates; and brothers, Joe Brown and wife Myra of Oletha, and John Brown and wife Ann of Thornton.