Mary Sissy Isabelle Rouse Sparks

Sissy was born in Houston, Texas, to Claude and Fay Neuhaus Rouse on the 29th of March 1927. She attended Lamar High School and graduated with a BS from The University of Texas in Austin in 1949. She married Aubrey Tynes Sparks in 1949.

She was a Member of the Lady Washington Chapter D.A.R., the Blue Bird Circle, National Society Colonial Dames XVII Century, United Daughters of the Confederacy-Jefferson Davis Chapter, River Oaks Rose Club, and Houston Yacht Club.

Sissy enjoyed sailing on Galveston Bay with her husband and two daughters and later with her four grandsons.

Sissy is preceded in death by her parents; her late husband, Aubrey Tynes Sparks; and her late daughter, Claudia Sparks Cannon. She is survived by her daughter, Cheryl Sparks Thomas and her husband Larry Thomas; son-in-law and daughter-in-law, Michael and Peggy Cannon; and grandsons, L. David Thomas, Jr. and his wife Kristin Jacobs Thomas, Travis Tynes Thomas, Brian Sparks Cannon and Sean Michael Cannon.

Friends are cordially invited to celebrate Sissy's life during a memorial service and reception, which is to be conducted at four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, the 15th of November, at the Houston Yacht Club, 3620 Miramar Drive in Shoreacres, Texas, 77571, where Reverend Isabell “Mopsy” Andrews is to officiate.

Prior to the memorial service, the family will have gathered for a private interment service at Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery in Houston.

In lieu of customary remembrances, and for those desiring, the family requests with gratitude that memorial contributions in Sissy's name be directed to the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, 5433 Westheimer, Suite 300, Houston, TX, 77056; or to the National MS Society, PO Box 4125, Houston, TX, 77210.