Lucille Mary Mather

A private service and inurnment will be held later at the Mather family cemetery near Liberty Hill. Condolences may be offered at clementswilcoxburnet.com. Arrangements made by Clements-Wilcox Funeral Home Burnet.

Lue was known for her beautiful smile and friendly nature. She enjoyed working in her gardens and was always willing to share her plants with others. Her early years were spent on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and truck farm in Illinois. She always joked that you could take the girl off the farm but couldn’t take the farm out of the girl! In Wisconsin she attended an elementary school called Uncle Sam that taught all six grades in one room! After moving back to Illinois she graduated from Rock Island High school in 1941. Lue completed St. Anthony’s School of Nursing in 1943. She became a registered nurse after training as a surgical nurse in Loretto Hospital in Chicago, Ill. With the war on, she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corp. and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. She was assigned to Tampa AAF in Florida, but asked to be sent overseas, so was reassigned to the 176th General Hospital in France. She crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary with 20,000 GIs! In France her duties included serving on a hospital train evacuating soldiers wounded during the Battle of the Bulge.' Her war time memories included seeing an ammunition train explode in front of their train, watching the Buzz bombs go over on their way to England and finding out that the shell she picked up on Omaha Beach was a live round! Her awards included a Letter of Commendation for service during the Battle of the Bulge and a Letter of Appreciation from the French for service during the French Liberation. After VE Day she returned to New York and was relieved from active duty as a First Lt. Lue met Richard Lavery during the war and they were married in Rock Island in 1945. They moved to Portchester, N.Y., where her seven children were born. Lue worked as an RN in Norwalk Hospital and cared for elderly patients in her home.

When her marriage failed, Lue returned with her children to Rock Island. She was a RN for her brother, Ray Dasso, an orthopedic surgeon, and was a RN in OB at St. Anthony’s Hospital until 1965. She then joined the Farmall International Harvester Corporation as an occupational health nurse in their emergency clinic. She retired from Farmall in 1986 and moved to Kingsland, Texas, to be near her brother, Leo Dasso. Lue built a home in Kingsland and lived there until 1995 when she met John Mather through friends. They were married in 1995 and lived on his small goat and horse ranch near Burnet. Lue enjoyed ranch life, especially watching the horses run in the pasture and the kid goats play in the trees. She brought a much needed feminine touch to the old ranch house and had fun landscaping the area with new trees, shrubs and flowers.

Lue is survived by her husband, John Mather; her stepson, Rob Mather; her sons, Edward Lavery, Roger Lavery, Richard (Matt) Lavery and Mark Lavery; her daughters, Martha (Danielle) Lavery and Elizabeth Green; her brothers, Jerome Dasso and Raymond Dasso. There are 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Lue was preceded in death by her parents, her daughter, Judith Needham, stepson, Thomas Mather, her sister, Bea Schwab, brothers, Vincent Dasso, Robert Dasso, Leo Dasso, Carl Dasso and Eugene Dasso. Both Carl and Eugene were B-17 pilots who were killed in WWII.

In Lieu of flowers please make donations to your local hospice.