Long-time Baylor County resident Geraldine Powell slipped from this life on June 14, 2018, just two weeks short of her 103rd birthday. She was born June 27, 1915 in Crosbyton, Texas, the second child of Tom and Belle Sessions. When she was two, the family moved to New Mexico, where they acquired land under the 1862 Homestead Act. Returning to Texas in 1925, they settled in Baylor County near Seymour.
In 1940, Geraldine married Ralph B. Powell, and they lived on their farm at Red Springs. In the 1950s, Geraldine attended Midwestern University, majoring in education. She taught fifth grade in Seymour Elementary School until her retirement in 1972.
After Ralph"s death in 1963, she continued to live on the farm until 1987, when she moved the house she and Ralph had built in 1948 to Seymour. In 2013, she moved to Dallas to be near her daughter. She was a long-time member of the Seymour Church of Christ.
Geraldine never faced a task or challenge she thought she couldn"t do and her hands were always busy with something worthwhile. She was unfailingly cheerful and upbeat, never complained, loved and cared tirelessly for her family, cooked thousands of meals, sewed, quilted and knitted millions of stitches, read voraciously, taught hundreds of fifth graders, gardened avidly, and enjoyed her friends. The world will be a poorer place without her.
Geraldine was predeceased by her husband, Ralph B. Powell, their son, Thomas L. (Tommy) Powell, her parents, Tom and Belle Sessions, and her sister, Hoyte Gilstrap. She is survived by her daughter, Andrea Powell Dyer of Dallas, Texas; her son David R. Powell and his wife Rory Graf Powell, of Athens, Texas; her daughter-in-law, Linda Snyder Powell of Wellington, Texas, five grandchildren, Lisa Walker and her husband Brad, Jeffrey Powell and his wife Candy, Stacy Teel, Reagan Powell and his wife Krista, Ashley McKinney and her husband Wade, and eleven great-grandchildren.
Services will be held in the chapel of Seymour Memorial Funeral Home in Seymour, at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, June 23, with visitation there on Friday, June 22, from 6 to 8 p.m., with burial in Henson Cemetery in Red Springs. The family suggests that memorials may be made to the Seymour Church of Christ Building fund, the Baylor County Library, or a charity of your choice.