Vicky Thompson Bair

VICKY RUTH BETTY GARRETT THOMPSON BAIR (aka “Mom,” “Sis,” “Nana,” “Aunt Vicky,” “Vicky-Ruth,” and “Mama Vick”) passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, on Saturday, August 23, 2025 – just over two weeks shy of her 84th birthday – at Memorial Hermann Hospital in The Woodlands, Texas.

The length of Vicky’s name is a testament to the extraordinary extent and width and breadth of her life. She was born on September 8, 1941, in Corpus Christi, Texas to parents Victor and Opal Garrett (née French). Surviving childhood with her three brothers, she married her high school sweetheart, Ronald Melvin Thompson, right out of high school in 1959.

For more than two decades, Vicky and “R.M.” (as she called him) embarked on a series of adventures that produced two children – daughter Kimberly O’Dawn Thompson born in 1961 and son Sean Keith Thompson born in 1965 – and took them all over the globe. As Ron became an officer of the United States Navy and served in Vietnam, Vicky held the home front as she raised her children alone until his return. From Texas to California to Japan to England, they lived the life of a military family – with Vicky receiving the prestigious ‘Navy Wife of the Year’ award from the Department of the Navy in 1977 – until they divorced in the early 1980s after 25 years of marriage.

With her now-grown children in universities and feeling she would never find love again, Vicky decided upon a self-imposed ‘new start’ by moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she pursued her real estate license while taking classes at UNM, resolved to a second life alone. It was at this point that she learned God had other plans for her in the form of Kenneth Henry Bair, Jr., World War II veteran and revered Albuquerque businessman, whom she met on a blind date set up by mutual friends. Within four weeks of their first date in 1986, he proposed, she accepted, and two families united – Bairs and Thompsons – that November under the banner of these two soulmates.

As Vicky’s immediate family suddenly surged in numbers, she embraced her new life in the loving embrace of Ken, who was father to eight, stepfather to two, and unreservedly “Dad” to all ten. She in turn loved her multiple ‘inherited children’ as her own, working side by side together at K.H. Bair & Associates until their mutual retirement when Ken reached his 75th birthday. Shortly after, they moved to Dallas, Texas, living just a few houses down the street from daughter Kimberly. In 2014, they decided to move closer to son Sean and made The Woodlands, Texas their final home.

In a cruel twist of fate, shortly after they moved from Dallas, Kimberly suffered from multiple cancers, and Vicky’s life became a nonstop series of Woodlands-Dallas trips until Kimberly finally succumbed to her disease after a terrific fight in January of 2018. The tragedy of losing her firstborn child was compounded when, three weeks later, her soulmate husband Ken collapsed and eventually passed away on February 20 of that same year after thirty-one years of marriage.

What would have destroyed most normal people could not daunt the indomitable will of Vicky, who took on the mantle of widow for the final phase of her life with her typical grace and fortitude. Fiercely independent even in the face of mounting health issues, she insisted on continuing to live alone in the house rented to her by Mauricio and Catalina, two landlords who became like family to her. She maintained control over every aspect of her life until age and respiratory illness and the complications of both forced her to stay at home more and more. Though she never asked for help, she always graciously accepted it when it was offered.

Ultimately, an otherwise mundane fall in the kitchen and a broken hip contrived to push her health issues past the point of no return. Within four days of being admitted to the hospital, Vicky’s body at long last outfought her will, and she passed away in the presence of generations of Thompsons, Bairs, and Garretts surrounding her bedside.

Vicky, the proud matriarch of three different families, is preceded in death by her parents Victor and Opal Garrett, brothers Wylie and Tandy Garrett, former husband Ronald Thompson, daughter Kimberly Thompson, nephew Bart Garrett, grandnephew Brent Stiles, grandson Kyle Newbill, son-in-law Kent Newbill, and the love of her life, Ken Bair. She is survived by her ‘baby’ brother Robert Garrett and his wife Loretta, son Sean K. Thompson, grandson Adrian Thompson, granddaughters Channing Tucker and Angela Thompson, daughter-in-law Christine Thompson and granddaughter-in-law Rebecca Thompson, nieces and nephews Cassandra, Brett, Dena, Sunny, Misty, Brandy, Cory, Kevin, and Ashlee, their spouses, a host of grandnieces, grandnephews, and great-grandchildren, and her ‘inherited’ children that she cherished as much as the ones she birthed: Stephanie Newbill, Jennifer Ancona, Sharon Dunkin, Kenneth “Cub” Bair III, Thomas Mathews “Matt” Bair, Clay Bair, Kye Chisman, Aaron Farris, and their spouses, children, and grandchildren.

Thanks to the grace of God and modern technology, Vicky was a faithful member of the Stringtown Road Church of Christ in Medina, Texas, and will be missed by her church family. She will be laid to rest, nestled between her husband and daughter, at Hillcrest Memorial Park after a 2:00 p.m. service with visitation on Saturday, September 13, 2025, at Sparkman/Hillcrest Funeral Home.