Lois Geraldine Davenport

Geraldine was born to Benjamin “Roy” Atchley and Joella Allen Atchley in the beautiful mountains of Honobia, Oklahoma on February 26, 1930. Growing up with her eight siblings led her to a life-long conviction that a family’s job is to gather- to work, to celebrate, to mourn, to hold each other accountable and to play (particularly music).

She met her husband Travis at a dance when she was 17. Not long after that, Geraldine left Oklahoma with her family to pick cotton in the southwestern US, but it didn’t take long for Travis to follow. The two were married in the town now perfectly known as Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. They migrated to California and back to Oklahoma before settling in Crosby, Texas in 1950, where they eventually had their three children, Ronnie, Pam and Mike. For 69 years, they modeled an unflashy but deep and steady love for each other, even (and especially) through the heartbreaking loss of their son Mike.

Geraldine worked everywhere from the fields to the school cafeteria to The Buffalo Den to Baker’s grocery store. She was a dedicated and successful Avon representative for 46 years. She kept her make-up flawless, and when the corporation sent her awards, she quietly stored them away in a drawer. Some of her very best work was done in her kitchen with a can of PET evaporated milk. If you’ve never used it in your mashed potatoes or cocoa, try it and think of her.

Among the gifts she shared with her family and friends throughout her life was her talent for playing piano and guitar by ear, her ability to crochet the softest baby blankets and her willingness to listen. She played her country music loud (the real kind) and read her Bible in the quiet. She served the yummiest ham and cheese sandwiches on thick, white bread and made the sweetest of sweet tea. And she could keep track of the weather across five different states and in multiple countries just so she could worry properly about her scattered brood.

In speaking and writing her final words, her emphasis was family. “First and foremost, take care of each other and be there when you are needed and always check to see if each other is O.K.” It is her family’s earnest intent to make her proud on this account.

Geraldine was preceded in death by her parents, “Roy” Benjamin Atchley and Joella Allen Atchley; her brothers and sisters, Roy” Atchley Jr., Helen Eubanks, Larry Atchley, Kenneth Atchley, Wanda June Metcalf, Jeanette Kostka, her son Mike Davenport; and son-in-law, Ralph Blaha.

She is survived by husband, Travis Lindy Davenport; brother, Don Atchley and sister, Joan Dailing; son, Ronald Travis Davenport and wife, Donna of Crosby; daughter, Pam Blaha of Crosby; daughter-in-law, Melinda Arwine and husband Les Arwine and like-a-son, Wendel Johnson of Franklin; grandchildren, Amy and Chad Blaha and their children - Audrey and Travis, Shelley and Scott Stevens and their son - Owen, Ginny and Brad Blaha and their children - Tripp, Brodey, Abby and Gabe, Jennifer and John Dabkowski, Rhonda and Jared Barrett and their daughters, Riley and Tori, and Rebecca and Joe Martens; and a multitude of nieces and nephews.

Special Thank you to Mary Cleveland, her hairdresser; her care-givers, Donna Morris, Susan Greenwood and Shylah Sexton