Laura De Ann Mansfield

Laura DeAnn (Cunningham) Mansfield, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin went home to Jesus on Sunday, April 27, 2025. Laura was born on September 23, 1946, in Oklahoma City to Larry Cunningham and Wanda Juanita Thrasher.

She spent her early childhood living on her grandparents’ farm in a rural area east of Oklahoma City. One of her favorite childhood memories was going horseback riding with her grandfather almost every Sunday after church. They rode on Spot, with Laura in the saddle and her grandfather sitting behind the saddle.

Her other fondest memory from childhood was travelling with her mom—including trips to the Grand Canyon, Washington, DC, and Chateauroux, France, where they lived for 13 months in 1958–1959 when Laura was 12 years old. Juanita accepted a transfer to the US Air Force base in Chateauroux from Tinker Air Force base, where she worked as an accountant. After their time abroad, they returned to Oklahoma to live in Midwest City near the air force base, where Juanita had purchased a home for them to live in. Laura credits her mother’s influence for teaching her to love travel and to embrace independence and self-sufficiency.

Laura was always very involved in musical activities throughout her life, taking piano, organ, and flute lessons from an early age. She received a bachelor’s degree in music from Oklahoma City University in 1968, where she was a member of Delta Zeta sorority. She later completed graduate work at the University of North Texas, where she received Kodaly certification. During college she was an organist and choir master at St. Elijah Antiochian Christian Orthodox Church in Oklahoma City. After graduating she was an elementary school music teacher in Midwest City, OK, and then later in Austin, TX. She moved to Austin with her husband Bailey Wynn, whom she married in 1968. He died in April 1972 after battling Hodgkin’s disease for 3 years.

Laura met Mack Mansfield at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, TX, shortly thereafter, and they married in December 1972. They moved to Houston where they raised their three children, Eric, Natalie, and Ryan. In Houston, Laura shifted from music to technical writing, at First City National Bank and later Pullman Inc. and Kellogg Computer Services. In 1986, she returned to teaching music, first at Westbury Baptist Church Day School, then as a private piano teacher, and later at Houston ISD’s Horn Elementary in Bellaire. She was a music teacher for most of that time, but she also taught computers and math. She made many of her closest friends during her years at Horn.

Laura often said that she’d work at one job or career until she learned how to do it well, then she became bored and began looking for something different to do—a new challenge. After her time teaching, she switched gears again and got a master’s degree in education technology from Houston Baptist University. She spent the last 5 years of her career working as a student technology services manager at the University of Houston–Downtown.

Laura made many wonderful friends at two church communities in Houston: first at South Main Baptist Church (1973 to 1982), then at Westbury Baptist Church (1983 to 2020), and then again at South Main (2020 to 2025). Laura loved music and travel and her friends and her family—and, of course, cats and kittens! She was proud of her three children and two grandchildren. And she said she was most proud of being married to Mack for more than 47 years. They enjoyed their time together and travelled extensively both before and after her retirement in 2011—including trips to Hawaii, Alaska, New York, San Francisco, Yellowstone, the Great Lakes, Montreal, Halifax, St. John’s, the Panama Canal, Belize, Honduras, Venice, Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Dubrovnik, Copenhagen, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, Norway, Ireland, Paris, Normandy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, and Austria.

Laura was preceded in death by her husband, Elwyn (Mack) Mansfield, her parents, her grandparents, Ivan and Augusta Cunningham, and her first husband, Bailey Wynn. She is survived by her son, Eric Mansfield and his husband Amado Morales; her son Ryan Mansfield; her daughter, Natalie Blachere and her husband Andreas; her grandchildren, Mattias and Freyja Blachere; her brother-in-law and sister-in-law Jack and Ann Mansfield; her niece Tara Smith and her husband Frederick; and her niece Melinda Chanin Canales and her husband Mike; as well as several great nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Laura’s name may be made to the Choroideremia Research Foundation at https://www.curechm.org/, Foundation Fighting Blindness Houston Chapter at https://www.fightingblindness.org/chapters/houston-chapter, or the charity of your choice.