Wanda Penney Lyons

Wanda Cleo Penney Simmons Lyons died July 9, 2005 in Austin, Texas. She was born November 30, 1917 in Big Spring, Texas, the daughter of Cleo Penney and Josie Pearl Merrick. Wanda lived many places around Texas and the United States until she settled in Austin, Texas in 1942. She married Joe Hood Simmons of Eastland, Texas in 1936. They had 3 children. She lived on Perry Lane for over 50 years, where she knew all the neighbors and saw many changes take place in Austin. Wanda was a devoted mom and a Girl Scout troop leader for her girls. She also loved to sew for her children and made many stylish shirts for her son, Joe Bob, out of the grain sacks from the horse’s feed. She spent many nights making beautiful hats, purses, and clothing for her daughters, Catherine and Janet. Wanda was always an elegant woman and loved creating stylish clothes to show off her beautiful family. She was very inventive and creative and developed many useful things from “Johnny Jump Ups” for the babies to felt patterns for stockings and holiday decorations. As her children grew older she began to work outside the home working first for AISD as a cafeteria manager and then for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. When her oldest granddaughters were little they loved visiting her at First Federal Savings where they got “Chiclets” and piggy banks on each visit. She then worked for the Texas Education Agency until her retirement in 1976. In 1980 she married Jack Lyons of Austin, Texas. Wanda also spent many years caring for her mother, sister and father until each of them passed away. Wanda died at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon at the Heartland Health Care Center of natural causes. She is survived by her 3 children, Joe Bob Simmons and his wife, Elaine of Kingsland, TX, Catherine Roberts of Elgin, TX and Janet Basey and her husband Mark of Liberty Hill, TX; 8 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and 2 great-great grandchildren. Visitation will be from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Monday, July 11th at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home. Services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12, 2005 in the Weed-Corley-Fish Chapel, followed by interment at Capital Parks Cemetery in Pflugerville. Memorials and guestbook online at wcfish.com