Deanna "MaMa" K. Morris

Deanna K. Morris, known to her family as "MaMa," passed away on October 16, 2026, at the age of 88. She was born on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1938, in Fort Worth, Texas, to Thomas Boyer and Gladys McKinney. Born on a day made for love, she made love the center of everything she did. She graduated from Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School in Fort Worth, where she was a majorette.

In Fort Worth, she married Edward "Buddy" Morris, and together they started their family when they adopted Sandra from Colombia at just eighteen months old. Cody came next. The family spent a few years in Oklahoma, where Sabrina was born, before settling in Houston in 1974, where Sandra, Cody, and Sabrina grew up together and where Deanna lived the rest of her life. To Deanna, there was never any difference between her girls. All three were simply hers.

For nearly thirty years, Deanna worked at Kroger as a cake decorator and baker, and she barely missed a day. She was proud of that, and she had every right to be. She made a lot of birthdays and celebrations a little sweeter for people she never met. But her family knows her best for her strawberry cakes, her banana bread, and her biscuits and gravy. Nobody has ever made them quite like she did. She also loved her makeup and always took pride in looking her best, whether she had somewhere to be or not.

Deanna came from humble beginnings, and she never forgot them. She knew how to make a little go a long way, and she almost always put others before herself. She took pride in her good name, and she was generous with everything she had. In good times and hard times, she stood by her family, and she never gave up on any of them.

After all those years of hard work, she earned a long retirement, and she enjoyed every minute of it. When family called to ask what she was doing that day, she'd say, proud as could be, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." No one deserved it more.

Later in life, Deanna chose to embrace the Catholic faith, a decision that was entirely her own, and she carried that faith with her for the rest of her days.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Thomas Boyer and Gladys McKinney; Edward "Buddy" Morris; her sisters, Letitia Peterson and Cynthia Boyer; her daughter, Sabrina Morris; and her granddaughter, Kiara Gladney.

She is survived by her daughters, Sandra Morris and Cody Elsaleh; her grandchildren, Donta Polk, Robert Bailey III, Kayla Bailey, Kalleea Bailey, Randy Delanta' Arnold, Bahiyya Nazih Elsaleh, Ahmed Nazih Elsaleh, Ibrahim Ali Nazih Elsaleh, Hassan Nazih Elsaleh, Summer Dalgamouni, Sunny Morris, Edward Telésforo, Sabrina Telésforo, and Spring Silk; her great-grandchildren, Camron Polk, Christian Polk, Amena Rose Arnold, Mariam Deanna Arnold, Yahia Zeewari, Maymoona Zeewari, Jaime-Lynn Medina, Aiden Miles, Sage Silk, and Blakely Silk; and a host of family and friends who loved her dearly.