Anita Rimmer

Bertie Anita Armstrong Rimmer was born in the farming community of Delia, TX, just outside Waco, on October 14, 1926, to Reuben Herbert Armstrong and Bessie Osborn Armstrong (later Parten). Anita spent most of her childhood on her grandparents’ cotton farm surrounded by her mother’s extended family. She had fond memories of helping her grandmother churn butter or shoo the chickens in out of the rain. She enjoyed playing with the children of the hired hands who worked picking cotton on her grandparents’ farm.

She attended Waco High School, where she was president of the Home Economics Club. She graduated at the age of 15, then attended Central City Commercial College to learn secretarial skills. After graduating, at the young age of 16 she came to Dallas by herself to live with an uncle and aunt while she made her way in the world. She passed the Civil Service exam, thus qualifying her for a higher paying job at the Tenth Regional Civil Service Office in downtown Dallas. For the next few years, she spread her wings, working in various cities and spending a year at Phillips University in Oklahoma, where she took music classes and was in the Texas Club.

Around the age of 25, Anita was invited by a friend to come to Coronado, California, for a visit. Anita said that when she stepped off the bus and saw the beautiful white beaches and the handsome Navy men, she decided she was not going back to Texas!

She got a job as a secretary for the Security Officer at North Island Naval Air Station, and it wasn’t long before she met a handsome young Lieutenant by the name of Harry Rimmer. They were married on Valentine’s Day in 1954, then a few months later, upon Harry’s discharge from the Navy, they drove across country in Harry’s brand new green 1954 Chevrolet to Harry’s hometown of Idabel, Oklahoma. There he worked for his father for a short time before being offered a job as a Structures Engineer at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, TX. Fort Worth would become their new home as they put down roots and started their family.

Their daughter Victoria Lynne (Vicki) was born in 1956 and their son Harry Lee III (Lee) followed along in 1958. As a full-time homemaker, Anita poured her heart into taking care of her family. She also enjoyed her Garden Club and Bridge Club. One of her favorite past-times was attending Lee’s baseball games. From the time Lee was 7 until he was a teen-ager, Anita attended every game possible, keeping detailed notes with her unique scoring system then sending play-by-play letters to Lee’s Grandfather Rimmer. Those letters have been saved in a special notebook as a family treasure.

Harry retired after 35 years at General Dynamics, which allowed him and Anita to spend many happy years together as full-time grandparents once their 6 grandchildren began arriving. Sadly, in 2002, Harry passed away after a brief illness. Anita missed him terribly, but, always the survivor, she moved on with her life. She sold the house in Fort Worth which she and Harry had designed together and where she had lived for over 30 years, in order to move to Colleyville to a house just down the street from Lee.

She would live in the house in Colleyville for the next 14 years. Her large game room with a pool table and big screen TV became a favorite hang-out for her now college-aged grandchildren, whenever they would come home on break. Her den became a place for special family announcements, such as engagements or the upcoming births of babies. Her door was always open, and we had many family gatherings there.

At last, declining health prevented her from continuing to be able to live on her own. At that point, Lee and his wife Peggie welcomed her into their home and took excellent care of her for 2 years. Finally it became necessary to move her to Grand Brook Memory Care in Grapevine, where she spent the final year of her life. Her family will be forever grateful for the excellent care she received from the staff of Grand Brook and also from Anchor of Hope Hospice. They also wish to thank Marilyn Erickson, who became like one of the family as she assisted with Anita’s care for many years. Anita finally passed into the arms of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on December 29, 2021.

She is survived by her daughter Vicki Robertson and husband Glenn, her son Lee Rimmer and wife Peggie, and her 6 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren: Rebecca Roberts with husband Patrick and children Tori, Kate, and Will; Justin Rimmer with wife Julie, son Phoenix, and daughter Raven; Daniel Robertson with wife Amy; Marshall Rimmer; Jordan Rimmer; and Micah Rimmer with wife Erin. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts on Anita’s behalf may be made to Christ Chapel Bible Church, 3701 Birchman Ave., Fort Worth, TX, 76107, which 4 generations of Rimmers have made their church home.

~* Memorial Message from Anita’s Daughter *~

Thank you all so much for coming today. I want to start by reading something that I found among Mom’s things which I think she would have wanted us all to hear. She probably wrote this around the time she turned 90. I’m sure that when she reached that milestone birthday, she began thinking about what she wanted us to know when she was no longer around, so she wrote the following:

“As I’m sure you already know, I enjoy writing. In the past there have been letters, poems, political speeches, legal documents, and even a short story. Now that I will no longer be around, I wanted to write one more time. I hope this will be read to everyone in my family because I want all of you to know how much you mean to me. It is impossible to express how deeply I feel, but I don’t want to go without saying I love you one more time. Each and every one of you has a special place in my heart, and I hope your memory of me will be with love.

Your Mother, Grandmother, and friend,

Anita Armstrong Rimmer”

Little did she know that she would live 5 more years after that and would get to tell us many more times how much she loved us, and we got to tell her the same thing. But finally, 12 days ago, Mom closed her eyes and woke up face to face with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She got to hear Him say those wonderful words from the Bible, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”

Now here’s what she did NOT hear Him say. She did NOT hear Him say, “OK, Anita, let’s take all the good things you’ve done and all the bad things you’ve done and put them on a scale to see how they balance out so I’ll know whether or not I should let you into heaven.” The Bible tells us that’s not how God does things, and here’s why: God is absolutely perfect, so His standard is absolute perfection. He cannot let anything that is not perfect into heaven. That’s really bad news for us because none of us are perfect. Everyone of us has sinned. Therefore every one of us stands guilty before God and under a sentence of eternal punishment away from the presence of God forever.

But the very good news is that God has provided a way for us to have the guilt of our sin removed. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a man. He lived a completely sinless, perfect life, yet out of the highest possible act of love, He willingly went to the cross where God the Father placed onto Him the guilt for sins which He did not commit and punished Him for those sins as a willing substitute. That means that for all of us who come to Him in simple, saving faith, God actually exchanges our guilt for Christ’s sinlessness. It’s as if He erases all our guilt out of His book, even the guilt for things we haven’t done yet, and writes these words beside our name: “perfect in Christ.” And if He declares us to be perfect in Christ, that means that when we stand before Him after we die, He will not take into account the stain of our guilt, only the perfection of His Son.

Now notice I said “simple saving faith.” I used this phrase because the word “faith” by itself can be misunderstood. I used to think that faith meant you prayed a prayer, then it didn’t matter how you lived. But then I learned that true saving faith is always be accompanied by a change in your life. The change is not what saves you, but the change will always happen when you are truly saved. It’s kind of like how an apple tree is an apple tree before it produces apples, but you can’t be sure it’s an apple tree until you see its fruit.

That’s why the Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away and new things have come.” The first new thing to come with true saving faith is a love for God. Then if you love God, you will want to know Him better. You will want to read the Bible and you will want to talk to Him in prayer. You will want to be around other people who love Him the way you do, so you will want to find a good church. You will want to do things that please Him. You will find that the sinful things which you used to enjoy will become less and less attractive. You will still sin but you will find yourself doing so less and less because Jesus will become more and more beautiful to you and you will want to become more and more like Him. That’s what true saving faith looks like.

And since it’s something that is alive, it never stops growing. Of course we will have good days and bad days, and our growth may feel uneven at times, but overall it will always keep progressing. It will never come to a stop. So if a person says they have faith but then walks away from God for an extended period of time, the Bible says that they should test themselves to see if they ever really believed at all, because it’s possible to have a counterfeit faith. But the beautiful thing is that even if a person has strayed far away from the Lord, if they will simply return, God greets them with the open arms of His deep fatherly love.

Well, thankfully, Anita had placed her true saving faith in Jesus Christ, so that when she first saw Him 12 days ago, she had no fear of facing His eternal punishment. Rather, she probably heard the same words which He said to the thief on the cross, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” And if she could come back for just a moment, I’ll bet she would say to us, “Please be sure that you have placed true saving faith in Jesus Christ the way I did, because I want to see you again as much as you want to see me.”

Vicki Robertson

January 10, 2022