Clarence Lowell Coomes II

Clarence “Lowell” Coomes II, age 87, died suddenly at home in Montgomery, Texas. He leaves behind the love of his life, Janice Meyer Coomes, married 66 years. Other surviving family members are his daughter, Lynette, grand-daughter Morgan, and son-in-law David Wallace. Lowell married Janice Meyer on Valentine’s Day 1959 after meeting at the local college and dating for about a year. Lowell continued college, was in the Navy Reserves, and a new husband. In 1960, Lowell became a Daddy to their only child, Lynette. Going to business courses at night, while working at the Southern California Gas Company in computer systems during the day. He once wrote: “I was a young man introduced to the chain-smoking world of systems during the infancy of computers. The climate controlled computing rooms contained huge mainframes and rows and rows of tape drives along with thousands of computer punch cards with 1s and zeros. It seems so unbelievable that all that equipment and computing power was less than a 1999 flip phone”.

In 1968, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, AAFES, located at Norton AFB, lured him from gas to retail. The computing world was expanding quickly in the mid 1960’s and the goal was creating code and systems for the supply chain, inventory and sales in the Exchange stores. As part of the AAFES support of the military during Vietnam, Lowell was transferred to Systems, Bangkok, Thailand in 1969. AAFES allowed the whole family to relocate to Thailand on a very enjoyable two-year assignment. As a 31year old Southern California boy, the time in Thailand brought Lowell a new sense of global perspective and a passion for travel and culture that filled him and his family’s lives. Every assignment comes to an end and for Lowell it ment saying goodbye to Janice and Lynette to serve a solo 1 year assignment for Vietnam AAFES in Saigon, as the Systems Analyst, Retail Operations for the region. During the war, Saigon was protected but still in the war zone. The DOD civilians were all housed at the Saigon Hilton and every night a Vietnamese soldier was positioned with a machine gun on Lowell’s balcony. He always cared about the welfare and safety of his staff. For decades after his return to AAFES Headquarters, many of his Thai and Vietnamese employees stayed in contact with him and shared visits.

In 1972, Lowell was transferred to AAFES Headquarters in Dallas, Texas, where he served in various positions ending up responsible for AAFES Micro Processing and Global Networking; including the first usages of email. He took the opportunity of early retirement in November,1995 at the age of 57.

Janice retired in January 1996 from Maxxus Energy and they moved to Walden on Lake Conroe, an hour north of Houston. That same year Lynette married her husband David and established the family home in Houston. The four traveled together a couple of years.

In February 1998, Lowell’s pride and joy, grand daughter Morgan was born. He loved being a “Poppi” and wanted the traveling to continue so Morgan got her first passport at 8 months old. Lowell and Janice began leasing a condo in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico ever November with Lynette and Morgan joining them. David would come down for a couple weeks as well. This November tradition lasted for 16 years.

Lowell once said “Careers are great, but retirement is better.”

In total, Lowell and Janice explored over 40 countries, including China, Peru, Nepal, Morocco and more. Egypt was a special place for Lowell, traveling there three times with Janice including taking Lynette with them the second and third trips. Morgan, after proving to be an impassioned traveler on a three week Italy and Greek vacation, at age 7, was taken to Egypt for her 10th birthday. Lowell was happiest with family enjoying the world together. Their 55 years of traveling the world and enjoying unique cultural experiences together as a couple and family were the best times of his life.

In lieu of flowers please make a toast to Lowell and hug the ones you love. We never know when it will be the last time.