Toline Porter Wooster

Toline Porter Wooster was a woman who was loved, will be missed, and will always be cherished by her family, friends, and those she touched as she walked through life. "Nonnie" to her grandkids and eventually to all of us, was generous, loving, funny (mostly unintended), and the hands-down best baker of banana bread and all things chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

Her life began in Longview, Texas, on January 30, 1934, where she spent part of her happy childhood bossing around her two younger brothers, John and Tommy Porter. After making many life-long friends in Longview, she went on to Abilene, Texas, and to college at Abilene Christian University (ACU), where she met and eventually married Don Wade after graduation in 1953. Their daughter, Becky, was born in Abilene, followed by two more children, Pam, and Don Russell, after their move to Wichita Falls in 1955.

In Wichita Falls, Toline lived a very full life. An artist and frustrated architect at heart, she painted, antiqued, designed her home, raised her three kids, and kept busy with family and church. Edgemere Church of Christ was a very big part of her life. She was a woman of deep faith who loved her church, and she gave back and participated in any way she could. Even after she was unable to physically attend, her close, long-time friends from church kept up with her, and she with them.

She was an encourager. There wasn't a lot that was more important to her than to support and encourage someone she loved and cared about. She was known for showing up at someone's home with framed Bible verses she specifically chose for that person, for that time and need in their life - typed up and framed. Often accompanied with banana bread.

And she was a reader. That love of books was passed down to all of us. To this day, her grandkids can recite "Brown Bear, Brown Bear," a Nonnie favorite, by heart. And speaking of heart, her grandkids WERE her heart. She loved every one of them singularly and fiercely, and asked about them all until she could not ask anymore. Her grandkids are Lindsay Todd, Shelby Crandall, Chris Burrus, Jessica Weaver, Nicole Wade, Casey Jaimes, and Tiffany Garrison. Add fourteen great-grandkids, to boot. Once again, in no particular order!

Toline went back to work when her kids were in high school and college, first as an English teacher, and later, after getting her master's at TWU, as a librarian both at Fain Elementary School and at Edgemere church. There was always a pile of books to be picked up and read to her grandkids, as well as her own books on her bedside table and coffee table. All were in varying degrees of "being finished." It was also during this time in her life that Toline met and married the love of her life, Charles (Chuck) Wooster, and they spent many happy years just "doing life" together (traveling, working, playing, attending church, eating ice cream, anything and everything, but always side by side). Her love for Chuck was so evident at the end of his life, as she was his advocate during illness, and a devoted caretaker until his death in September, 2006.

We're just pretty sure Nonnie and Chuck are sharing a big bowl of ice cream, their nightly ritual, right about now. Makes us smile, and we hope it does you, too.

We are counting some of her dearest, beloved friends as honorary pallbearers. They are Puffy Davis, Janet Findley, Norma Hill, Betty Lobley, Dale Lobley, Mary Jo Miller, Mary Peters, Linda Shanks, Billie Smith, and Carol Wagner.

A VERY SPECIAL, HEART-FELT THANK YOU to the day-in, day-out caretakers, Toline's son Don Russell Wade, his wife, Dona Wade, and his daughter and RN, Casey Jaimes. Memorials can be made to the Alzheimer's Association at alz.org. And love can be spread to all the selfless caretakers of those who are afflicted with this horrible disease.

Visitation will be this Wednesday evening, Hampton Vaughan Funeral Home, Wichita Falls, Texas, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Services will be Thursday, November 8, 2 pm, also at Hampton Vaughan. Interment will follow immediately at Hampton Vaughan Crestview Memorial Park.