Carrie Elizabeth McDowell

Carrie Elizabeth McDowell, of Montgomery, passed away in Conroe on Monday, June 1, 2015, at age 90. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel. Burial will follow in the Kosse City Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Joshua Jeffrey, Justin McDowell, Robert Clements, John McDowell, Paul McDowell, and Zeke Jeffrey. Carrie was born on June 6, 1924 to Charles Wesley Jones and Beulah Mae (Ingram) Jones in Franklin. She was raised on a farm where the family were sharecroppers, and attended school in Kosse, until her father passed away when she was 16, and she had to start working to help support the family. She first worked at the Whiteway Café and eventually found work in Dallas in a sewing factory making army tents. She and some of her friends answered an ad for jobs with the Civil Service and flew to Marietta, Georgia. Not only was the flight an adventure, but she had never even been to a doctor until her medical exam for employment. They worked during the war doing electrical wiring on airplane wings. When the war ended she moved to Houston working for Southwest Bell as a telephone operator. Carrie met Dee Weldon McDowell, who was from Thornton, and they were united in marriage on June 5, 1948 in Houston. For the rest of her life, she was a wife, mother and homemaker. They made their home in Houston, until Dee passed away in 1994, and at that time she moved near her daughter in Montgomery. She took her children to Kosse every year to visit many relatives in the area, and spent time in the Kosse and Eutaw cemeteries, and Fort Parker Cemetery where her sister Bessie was buried, pointing out the graves of various family and friends and discussing genealogy with her daughter. Carrie enjoyed living on the ten acres near her family and driving her golf cart to the pond to fish. She loved fishing either by herself or with her grandchildren. She was a devoted grandmother to the grand and great-grandchildren. She was an excellent cook, and enjoyed crochet and knitting, but she especially loved reading books, and books, and more books. Carrie was a member of the Church of Christ, but because she did not drive, was not able to attend services in her later years. Mrs. McDowell was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Dee McDowell; four of her brothers and sisters in her younger life, and her remaining brother, Leonard Conner Jones in 1987; and all of her nieces and nephews except one. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, John and Johnine McDowell of Spring; her son, Paul McDowell of Montgomery; and her daughter and son-in-law, Brenda and Zeke Jeffrey of Montgomery. Her grandchildren and their spouses are: Joshua and Jennifer Jeffrey, Sarah and Robert Clements, Rebecca Jeffrey, Carrie and James Wick, Justin McDowell, and Christina McDowell. The great grandchildren are: Patrick, Hannah, and Racheal Jeffrey; Cooper, Marshall, Barrett and Graham Clements; Cathrine Wick; and John and Rosemary McDowell. She is also survived by one nephew, Gene Jones of Montgomery, and great nieces and great nephews.