Sherry , Robbie, Kyle and Kane:  So sorry to hear of the passing of your dear Mother.  Please know that you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers. Take care and God Bless You.

When I was playing over at my friend Sherrys house one weekend. Mrs. Nikki pulled out her beautiful wedding dress and let me try it on. I’ll never know why she trusted me with something so precious, but it meant the world to me. 

I remember when I was 9(ish) and had spent the night at my best friends house (Sherry). I was terribly ill the next morning and she took such good care of me. I was terrified and she was there the whole time...by my side- Firm and reassuring that everything would be ok. That was 40 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. 



I could never get Mom and Dad to tell me whether I was a surprise, but I do know, mathematically, that I wasn’t born until 14 years later.  I often wonder what those years were like.  Mom never discussed their life before me really.
August 9, 1972, Delyla Allsup went from the solitary title of wife, to the extended title of wife and mother.  She was really great at it too. I was loved and supported.  I was taught to be creative. I was taught to be loyal.  I was taught to love people.  I was read to and listened to. Playing was encouraged.  Mud pies were allowed.  There was much that wasn’t perfect, but I honestly believe my parents did the best they knew how. 
Throughout my time with Mom, I knew her to be witty and a bit saucy. One of my funny stories of Mom was from her time at Canterfield Assisted living.  She always carried tissues with her(Lord, could she tear through tissues!  I was buying her crates of it on Amazon!)  At one point I noticed she had a roll of toilet paper on the handle of her walker.  One of my habits was to read her journal whenever I visited her.  She had written in her journal about how she was tired of people always asking her for a tissue, so she put a roll of toilet paper on her walker because they were “her tissues, her rules!”  I can’t wait to get a hold of those journals;  I may have to write a comedy book based on the mixed up mind of a mom with wit and dementia.
The end...

When we moved her to Canterfield, I began piecing together gaps in my knowledge of my mom.
I knew as a kid she was rugged and adventurous.  She lived on a farm as a child and ate vegetables straight out of the ground...raw.  She had a gnarly scar on her shin from landing on a rusty nail as a girl.
I knew she was an active and spirited teenager.  When I was a teen she had told me she was a cheerleader for her high school and that she had lettered in it.  I found out recently that she was also an illustrator for her school newspaper.  As a teenager, her family moved into town from the farm, and she became a “city” girl in a town that had a population about the same as my graduating class when I visited as a teenager.
When she graduated high school, she boldly stepped out into the world and joined the Women’s Air Force on Nov. 15, 1955.  She had to learn to write backwards because she wrote information on a glass board for others to read because her specialty was AC&W Operator, which, if Google is correct, meant that she worked in Aircraft Control and Warning.   I can only imagine what this small town girl thought of Tinker AFB in Oklahoma!
She met my dad during this time in her life, and, if I remember correctly, it was a set up by a mutual friend.  At the time of their engagement, they were not stationed together, so Dad mailed her the engagement ring.  Poor Dad didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, or maybe he did...dead men tell no tales.  She was discharged to become a wife.  Her discharge paper lists “Ltr from Amn Allsup” as the reason for her discharge. 
She was warmly welcomed into the Allsup Family.  I have a letter her mother wrote to the family that couldn’t come to the wedding that effusively described the southern hospitality of Dad’s parents.  They were married on March 27, 1958. They were married 58 years.
Continued...

She also had a green thumb.  She could rescue any plant that I brought to her.  She was a member of the Seagulls Circle of the Orange Park Garden Club, and helped them organize presentations and scrapbooks of their efforts to beautify our neighborhood.
When I became a teenager and we moved from our home in Slidell, Louisiana, to Orange Park, Florida, she became my first friend in Florida.  We were best friends. We would go to swim in the pool every afternoon while we lived in Club Continental’s tower apartment, and, when we eventually moved into our house in Indian Springs, we changed location to our own pool every day!  We played Aggravation on the floor of our den and ate frozen yogurt while we did.  As I started to make friends, she began the process of adopting my new friends as her children too.
As I became an adult, she often played the role of peacemaker between my dad and I, as we were both quite singularly minded.  She and Dad babysat my kids and often joked that they were keeping a file for DCFS so they could try to steal them from us.
When Dad died, things changed.  I discovered he had been compensating for Mom’s memory problems and sense of helplessness.  I started doing things like grocery shopping for her and she made sure I was a signer on any bank account she had.  Gradually, I took more and more responsibility for her, and, then, in December 2017, Mom had a stroke that forced both of us to act on the gradual memory loss that had been progressing.  She could no longer live alone.  She could no longer manage her own medications, meals, hygiene, or driving.  I became my mom’s mom.  We tried to keep her in her own home for almost two years.  Kyle moved in with her to be her night time keeper when the two friends that were helping me with her couldn’t be there.  He was 17 and caring for my mother to help us both out.  I was so grateful and proud of him, but eventually her behaviors became too erratic and full time care became a necessity.
Continued...

Delyla Bernice (Nichols) Allsup

Growing up, all I knew was Miss Nicky/Mom.  She was organized, but not tidy, and always punctual, if not early, to everything.  She sewed most of my clothes until I was in upper elementary school.  She loved to read and had an occasional glass of wine.  We had a TV in almost every room and she had it on much of the time, but then there were 4 of us living together, so sometimes someone else was watching it. She volunteered in every school library that I ever went to, although it was short lived in high school.  She made me the most awesome, elaborate Halloween Costumes.  One of them was turning an old prom dress into a southern belle costume, creating a hoop skirt out of aquarium pump hose.  She chaperoned more swimming sessions than anyone should have to. 
She helped care for her mother-in-law for at least 20 years, having her live in our home, and driving her to a weekly hair appointment and trip to the grocery store.  When Grandma broke her arm and her health started to fail, Mom did the lion’s share of taking care of Grandma, helping her with bathroom visits, personal hygiene, and caring for her needs.
She sang in her church choir and volunteered at church so much that I felt totally at home in every church I went to growing up.  I think the people in her church choir became her adopted family for a time.  She loved helping organize the youth choir trip every year.  Those trips were something that stuck in her memory after the stroke.  Those trips were her life.  She is the reason Dad started going to church again after leaving church for a time, although she brought him back to church well before I was involved.
In my high school years, she and Dad became the epitome of a band parent, going to concerts and competitions and helping with concessions at football games.  She was “the mom” of all of my friends and had a purse full of any item anyone might possibly need.  No wonder she had back trouble later in life! 
Continued...

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She is predeceased by her husband, William John Allsup; her parents, Bernie and Bernice Nichols; and her siblings. She is survived by her daughter, Sherry Bumpers (Robbie); and her grandsons, Kyle and Kane. The family would like to thank the staff of Canterfield of Clay County for providing her exceptional care during the final years of her life.

AVIS DE DÉCÈS

Delyla Bernice Allsup

14 mars 1937 – 6 janvier 2021

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