LaVelle Morrison Bothe

Services for Hortense LaVelle Morrison Bothe, who went by LaVelle, will be 1:00 pm Tuesday, June 24, 2014 at Bethel Assembly of God, 6801 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth, Texas. Burial will follow at Moore Memorial Gardens. Visitation will be Monday, June 23 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Moore Funeral Home, 1219 North Davis Drive, Arlington. Mrs. Bothe, passed away peacefully into the arms of the Father and surrounded by her family on Friday, June 20, 2014, at the age of 92.

LaVelle was born on February 4, 1922 to John Robert and Josie Hortense Barry Morrison in Ranger, Texas. Her family were early settlers in Texas and she took great pleasure and pride in her Barry and Morrison family history which included her great grandfather, James Buckner “Buck” Barry, who helped settle Bosque County and the Republic of Texas as a legislator and Texas Ranger. In her early years, LaVelle experienced both the oil boom in Texas as her father worked in Ranger, Texas, and later in Borger, Texas, and the years of the Great Depression in Walnut Springs and Hamilton, Texas, and later in Stephenville, where she graduated from Stephenville High School in June, 1939.

Following high school graduation her family moved to Fort Worth where, in 1944, she met Louis Bothe Jr. Mother and Dad loved to dance and their first date was a dance in July, 1944 with their close friends Murray Morton and Helen Griffith. They married on April 15, 1945, at the Polytechnic Baptist Church and they were happily married for over 51 years as lifelong and active residents of Fort Worth. Her community and board and volunteer service included active participation in the Meadowbrook Elementary PTA and the Eastern Hills Highlander Band Booster Club in support of her children. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. She was a member of the Downtown Lady Lions Club for many years and served as President (1987-1988), Secretary, Historian, Treasurer and Program Chairman.

Although LaVelle was principally a homemaker most of her life, she would speak fondly of her first job at Montgomery Wards on W 7th Street in Fort Worth during August, 1940-1942 and her work with the Fort Worth Stock Show between 1972 and 1986.

LaVelle was a woman of faith who was saved at the age of 10 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Texas. She attended and was active in her church all her life including membership in the Polytechnic Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, Texas from 1947 until 1977, and then a member of Bethel Temple Church in Fort Worth for almost 40 years. She was a student of the Word and also a teacher of the Word, teaching adults and children for many years. When asked about her travels, she would quickly answer that her favorite trip was the one she took to the Holy Land, to Israel, in the 1970s. It was a lifelong thrill for her to have walked where Jesus walked in Nazareth, in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem and even to be baptized in the Jordan River. LaVelle walked with God her entire life and He gave her courage and strength and blessed her abundantly.

LaVelle was a woman dedicated and devoted to her family. It is said that you can tell what is most important to a person by what they display on their bookcase at home or desk at work or on the nightstand in the bedroom. When you observed LaVelle’s bookcase, or her desk or her nightstand, you saw pictures and pictures of her family……… her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. In remembrance of their mother and grandmother, her children and grandchildren have all recently written letters sharing their memories and love for LaVelle. As you read those letters, you come to understand what a huge impact and influence and imprint that she had on the life of her family. She poured her life into her family and they were positively shaped by her training and unconditional love. Those letters reflect some wonderful memories.

LaVelle was a woman of courage. LaVelle’s husband, Louis, passed away in 1996 which meant that LaVelle spent almost 18 years living alone. If there was one thing in life that LaVelle disliked it was being alone and, despite the best efforts of friends and family to fill her hours with visits, and trips and telephone calls, she still spent countless hours alone which we know was difficult for her. But she always managed it with such grace and with courage and with a positive attitude and with a desire to help others. For many years at the church, LaVelle was one of the volunteers who would call the sick or the home bound or those who had not been able to attend church. For her small home group, she would be the one to order flowers or provide a card when someone was sick or had experienced a death in the family. At Lakewood Village these past few years, LaVelle was a greeter and would reach out to new residents to welcome them and to help them feel comfortable. She reached out to help others.

LaVelle was a breast cancer survivor. She survived a serious stroke in 2010 and, these past few months, battled lung cancer. Through it all, she lived her life with courage and with strength.

After Louis passed away, LaVelle kept a yellow post-it note taped to her refrigerator door. On this post it note she added a handwritten quotation from Martha Washington. This quote goes as follows, “The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstances.” LaVelle chose to live victoriously.

A second note was also taped to the refrigerator which reads, “Loneliness overtakes us only whenever our joy is dependent on someone or something else.” The handwritten note went on to read, from Jeremiah 29:11, “For I have plans for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

For 92 years, God honored that promise and blessed LaVelle with courage, and with joy, and with the love of her family and friends. We thank God today for the blessed life of this wonderful woman, and we thank God for the blessing that we have received to have known this remarkable woman as a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother and a friend.

Survivors include her daughter, Lynda Taylor and husband Mike and her son, Larry Bothe and his wife Sheila. She is also survived by six grandchildren, including Gregory Michael Taylor and wife Brenda, Grant David Taylor and wife Carla, Stephen Scott Taylor and wife Anna, Alisha Suzanne Bothe Nicolello and husband Ryan, Stephanie Leigh Bothe, and John Louis Bothe. She is further survived by her nine great grandchildren, David, Daniel, Anna, Sarah, Ben, Sage, Guthrie, Rye and Nathaniel and by many more family members and friends.

Those wishing to make a donation in in honor of LaVelle, rather than send flowers, are encouraged to send that to Bethel Temple Church, 6801 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth, Texas, 76112.