Jessie L. Stockton

Jessie Louise Stockton of Groesbeck passed away Sunday, April 15, 2018 at Groesbeck LTC, at age 92. Visitation will be Tuesday, April 17, 2018 from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at Groesbeck Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel, with Reverend Troy Brooks  officiating.   Burial will follow in Fort Parker Memorial Park. Pallbearers will be Chester Aills, Chris Aills, Michael Lewis, David Lewis, Douglas Aills, and Keith Aills.   Honorary pallbearers will be Michael Ray Lewis and Roger Freeman. Jessie was the first of seven children, born to Luther (Luke) Lee Castleberry and Mary Helen (Cox) Castleberry on April 4, 1926, on her father’s twenty-first birthday.  She was born at home, in the Pleasant Grove community between Thornton and Oletha, 6 miles west of Thornton.  The family moved into Thornton in 1932 when her father went to work for Limestone County, where he worked the next 32 years.   Jessie attended school in Tnornton, and from the time she was a baby was given the nickname of “Nig” by her Uncle Charlie.   All her family and Thornton friends called her Nig all her life, although she is known in Groesbeck as Jessie. Jessie married Allan Stockton in 1945, and spent the next twenty-two years living where ever Allan’s job took them, while he was in the U. S. Air Force.   Jessie always came home to Thornton for two weeks every summer, bringing her daughter Nancy and her portable sewing machine, to make school clothes for sisters Shirley and Bobbie.   She made them five sets of clothes each, from the shopping in Groesbeck for patterns and material, to finishing the hemming during those two weeks, as her gift of love for her parents and sisters.    She sewed all of Nancy’s clothes and even maternity outfits for Bobbie. Allan and Jessie moved back to Groesbeck in 1963 when he retired, and she went to work for Kilgore’s Western Auto.  She worked there until they sold out, and then went to work at Mexia State School in food service. She took courses from Sam Houston, attending classes in Waco, and earning her GED, and became the food service manager, serving in that position for the next ten years, until retiring in 1991. Jessie was a sports fan and especially a fan of Texas Ranger baseball.   She loved to cook, including finding and trying out new recipes.  She enjoyed planting flowers in the yard and teaching Nancy about cooking and gardening.  Her hobbies included crossword puzzles, needle work, and reading.  She did many pieces of large yard art, along with Nancy, Bobbie, and Shirley, with Roger cutting out the pieces.    They sanded and painted and had a great time together working and laughing, until her health problems required her to give up this work.     She cared for other people, and was faithful through the years to show her respects at the funeral home for the family and friends she had known from her youth who had passed away.  She was a member of the First Baptist Church of Groesbeck. Jessie was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; three brothers – William Lee Castleberry, Billy Ray Castleberry, and Buck Castleberry; and a sister, Darlene Dean. She is survived by her daughter, Nancy Louise Stockton of Groesbeck; sister and brother-in-law, Shirley and Roger Freeman of Groesbeck; sister, Bobbie Jean Lenamond of Groesbeck; and many nieces and nephews and other extended family.