Jack Garmer Thompson

Jack Garner Thompson, of Oletha, passed away at Windsor Healthcare Residence in Groesbeck on Saturday, May 5, 2018, at age 85. Visitation will be Monday, May 7, 2018, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 8, 2018,  at the Old Union Church (located by the cemetery), with Brother Glenn Easterly officiating.  Burial will follow in the Old Union Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Mike Thompson, Shane Thompson, Carl Thompson, Randy Ingram, Mack Jones, and Wayne Martin. Jack was born November 17, 1932 to Earl “Smoky” Thompson and Ruth (Richardson) Thompson in Oletha.   After high school, Jack served two years in the U. S. Army, first in El Paso and then stationed in Rapid City, South Dakota. As a young man, his friends had given him the nickname, “Smiling Jack” because  he was dating such a pretty girl, younger and still in high school, nicknamed “Boots” (or “Bootsie.")   After not seeing Jack while he was away for two years, Bootsie decided to go to South Dakota to marry him, and she was driven by Billie Ruth and Holvys Turner, Jack’s sister and brother-in-law. Jack and Frances Isabel “Boots” Archer were united in marriage on June 13, 1954 in Rapid City, and they continued to live there until he was discharged. They moved back to Oletha, and Jack worked for the Texas Department of Public Transportation in Limestone County for the next twenty-eight years.    He worked another twenty years for the U. S. Postal Service as a rural mail carrier, until retirement. Jack and Boots had two sons, and since both worked, their two-week vacation each summer was their best time spent together with the boys, whether on trips to Arkansas, the mountains in Colorado, a trip to Canada, and many weekend trips taking the kids and later their grandchildren to Glen Rose and Galveston.  Jack loved the mountains so much that they bought land and built a home near Westcliffe, Colorado.  Jack and Boots and the two boys worked together to get the house started and “dried-in” in one week, and then Boots and Jack worked on it during their trips there throughout the next five years.   Many wonderful times were spent in this home with the children and grandchildren, with Jack especially loving the deer in their year and the beautiful golden yellow of the aspen trees in the fall.     Jack, as well as Bootsie, were dedicated to the grandchildren, making sure each one had a car and that they graduated from college. Jack raised cattle and farmed and gardened.  What he liked best about gardening was giving away vegetables.  Jack bought up land when it became available that had once been owned by his family, wanting to get back as much as he could of the original family acreage.   When Jack retired, he missed visiting with all the folks he had seen daily on his mail route.   He established another route, to visit with and speak to friends – his “apple” delivery route.   Jack handed out countless number of apples when he would stop in to speak a few words, using his “dry” humor for a few quips and then smiling his wonderful friendly smile with people, and earning his later-in-life  nickname of “Apple Jack.”  Jack had a great sense of humor, and always found something humorous in everything, even with his boys while they were growing up.    His other favorite “route” was looking for deer every evening at dusk.  Boots would drive them as long as she was able, or his son or someone else would drive  him, as recently as a month ago, down the back country roads, through Oletha to the lake, past Running Branch and Summer Place.   They might count from twenty  up to four hundred deer on a drive.      Jack was a life-long member of the Church of Christ, still attending services up until three months ago.   Jack was not only a Christian but a very generous-hearted man.    He was a help to several local small churches in Thornton and Groesbeck, purchasing a refrigerator and a van when he learned these were needed. Jack was preceded in death by his parents, Smoky and Ruth Thompson; his infant brother Kenneth Thompson; his and Boots’ infant son in 1955; his sister and brother-in-law, Billie Ruth Turner and Holvys Turner; and then his wife, Boots, in 2016. He is survived by sons, Kyle Thompson of Amarillo and Kelly Thompson of Oletha; brother and sister-in-law, John and Dorothy Thompson of Old Union; grandchildren: Shane Thompson of Austin, Nikki Thompson of Woodland, Whitney Thompson of Ft. Worth, Carl Thompson of Groesbeck, Keiffer Thompson of Missouri, Keely Thompson of Missouri; and many extended family.