Reatha L. Sprouse

She was married to Samuel Alexander Sprouse on October 07, 1949 in Houston, Texas.

Reatha was a devoted wife to her husband and a loving Mother raising her sons in a stern but loving manner. She had a gregarious nature and was always ready to lend a helping hand. She liked to laugh, and joke, and tease in a fun manner but then could sit down and engage you in conversation for hours. Throughout her life she was an active member in church attending both the Church of the Nazarene and, in her later years, the Assemblies of God Church. She loved children and read Bible stories to her sons when they were young but when they were older, she invited young neighborhood children into her home to listen to Bible stories. She loved to play piano and sing Christian hymns and songs and she taught young children in Sunday School much of her life. Reatha sincerely believed and taught that prayer to God will change things in our lives and in the world for the better and she practiced prayer daily. She believed that the most important value in our lives is that we love God and serve Him. “Nothing else matters in the end.” She would say. When her sons were grown, she would often ask them, “Are you still attending church?”. It was her “acid test” to check if they were following in her footsteps to serve God. Her life was buffeted and tested severely when she went through a divorce in 1986 after 36 years of marriage and then lived alone.

In 1988 she relocated from Houston, Texas to Newport News, Virginia to be with her eldest son, Alvy, and his family. There Reatha worked in the Home Health Care field on a 24/7 live-in basis providing care for widowed client women for ten years in the Newport News and Hampton, Virginia area. She kept a detailed scrapbook of memorabilia and obituary newspaper clippings of the women and families she worked with and came to know throughout those years. When Alvy returned back to Houston, Texas in 1997 she also returned back a year later and lived in Conroe, Texas near Houston.

In 2006 Reatha’s health was faltering and she moved to Anchorage, Alaska from Conroe, Texas to be near Alvy, and his family who had relocated there from Houston. One year later she moved into Northern Lights Assisted Living Home in Anchorage to receive full time care and support. Later she moved to the Alaska Pioneer Home in Anchorage where she received care and support until her death. Reatha was always grateful to all around her who took care of her and she always told them words of thanks, appreciation, and love. And even with the little income that she had in her later years she always told us to give tithes and offerings from her income to the Church. Her eye sight was diminished but she was still singing Christian hymns and songs from her memory until her final days.

Left to cherish her memories are her sons, Alvy W. Sprouse and his wife Svetlana A. Sprouse of Anchorage, Alaska, Thomas W. Sprouse and his wife Charla F. Sprouse of Smith’s Gove, Kentucky; Grandson, Kenneth R. Sprouse of Houston, Texas; granddaughter, Jennifer F. Sprouse Oberhausen and husband David D. Oberhausen; and great grandsons, Mitchell K. Oberhausen and Logan T. Oberhausen of Horse Cave, Kentucky.