Guinevere Nash Seammen

Guinevere Nash Seammen went to be with the Lord on April 14, 2018. Born in the “Flapper” era on July 2, 1922, she shared something of that blithe spirit. Graduating at age 16 from Reagan High School in Houston, she went to Southern Methodist University and Northwestern University where she focused on Theater Arts and Speech. At SMU, a man from the Metropolitan Opera heard her sing and suggested she audition for the Met in New York, but someone told him “she’s only 16”, so that passed.

At Northwestern she met Maxham Everett Nash II, a “Yankee” from Framingham, Massachusetts. After their marriage, she and Max settled in Houston and began to raise a family. Blithe spirit or no, life dealt her some hard blows. On a Friday night, June 15, 1951, Guinevere was returning from Galveston with Max and a friend of his. Max was driving. A woman who had stolen a car was driving south on the then 2-lane Gulf Freeway. She was driving on the wrong side of the road with her lights off. Max swerved right the instant he saw her, but was killed instantly, leaving Guinevere to raise four boys. Later, Guinevere discovered that her oldest son, Max III, had been born hard-of-hearing with a severe learning disability.

Now a single mother she was forced to go back to school at the University of Houston where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree. She then taught speech in high school for many years. She was a regular member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, a devoted supporter of Cullen Center for the Retarded and proud of her presidency of the Twenty-Six Literary Club that her mother had co-founded. She remained passionate about travel and the arts. She found joy in painting, sculpting and making jewelry, but her greatest passion was her children and grandchildren to whom she devoted her life and energy. She talked to them, encouraged them, feted them with birthday parties and Christmas and other celebrations. She was also fiercely loyal to her friends, maintaining some of those friendships over decades.

She was preceded in death by both her parents, O’Banion Williams and Amy Singer Williams, her later husbands, Nolan Guy Runnels and Frank Heath Seammen and her only brother O’Banion Williams, Jr. She is survived by her children Maxham Everett Nash, III, Alan Williams Nash and his wife Marilyn Greer, James Gregory Nash and his wife Linda Wilson, Kenneth Lee Nash and his wife Yvonne DeJager Nash and Guy Runnels and his wife Carol Runnels; eight grandchildren Edward Alan Nash, Clifford Williams Nash, Corinna Marie Nash, James Wilson Nash, Alex Wilson Nash, Jeffrey Lee Nash, Marianne Elizabeth Nash and Thomas Douglas Nash; and ten great-grandchildren.

A Memorial Service for Guinevere will be held at 10 A.M., Friday, April 20 in the chapel at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church on Westheimer. In lieu of the usual remembrances, the family requests that donations be made to St. Luke’s or the charity of one’s choice.

THE NAME IS GUINEVERE

I was blessed with 26 first cousins. They are male, female, short, tall, thin, not thin, highly

educated, artisans and craftsmen, wealthy and not, married, widowed, divorced, parents,

grandparents and, alas, too many now in heaven. Many of us were born in the tumultuous period between the Great Depression and the Second World War. The cousins I knew best (21of them) belonged to my Mother's seven brothers and three sisters. She and her siblings grew up for the most part on tenant farms in Southeast Texas where everybody worked every day in the field or the kitchen or the barn. They learned how to lay a fire, bake a pan of biscuits, kill a chicken, mend a fence, sit a horse, brand a heifer, hunt, fish, shoot and clean a gun. The girls also were taught to cover up in the sun with bonnets and gloves to protect their skin. They all mostly studied in one room schoolhouses and did their homework by firelight. Four of the sons fought in World War l. After the war, the sons and daughters left the farm

one by one. They came to explore the possibilities of city life in and around Houston, to start

their families and seek their fortunes. For the most part they succeeded. A new generation

began showing up; eventually there were 23 of us. ln no particular order there were two Bills and Robert and Clyde and Tom and John. There was May and Betty and Sandra, and Ellen. There was Douglas, Raymond, Martin and Albert. There was Deborah, Brenda and Rosemary. There was Jo Ann and Anne. There was O'Banion. There was Dixie Lee. And then there was Guinevere.

Guinevere! The very name conjures skin like bridal satin, hair dark as a raven, eyes luminous

and lively. She is all that plus graceful, gracious, generous and gorgeous, Because she is

Southern she is ethereal and ageless, because she is a Texan she is strong and real; because

her life has not been without heartache and hardship, she is patient, kind and loving. I have tended, over the years, to talk about her a great deal; clearly she is someone I admire tremendously. My friends have come to refer to her simply as "Your Beautiful Cousin with the

Beautiful Name."

BEAUTIFUL SHE IS; THE NAME IS GUINEVERE