Avis Lorraine Box

Avis Lorraine Box, of the Willow Creek Community, passed away at Groesbeck LTC on Tuesday, January 5, 2016, at age 97. Visitation will be held Friday, January 8, 2016, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at Groesbeck Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday, January 9, 2016 in the Groesbeck Funeral Home Chapel, with Brother Paul Moore (First Assembly of God of Thornton), Brother Joe Tucker (Gateway Assembly of God, Trinidad) and Chaplain Jon Honea officiating. Burial will follow in Ebenezer Cemetery (Kosse.) Pallbearers will be Bill Riedinger, Cody Riedinger, Ron Chalene, Michael Prine, Jerry Everett, and Rick McAbee. Honorary pallbearers will be Jimmy Brown, Scott Chalene, Bobby Rogers, Patrick Rogers, and Kennon Chalene. Avis was born on August 2, 1918 to James Riley Pace and Iva Cecil (Roebuck) Pace in the Willow Creek community in Robertson County. She grew up and attended school in that community, where the school house had been built on land given by the Pace family, and was used for community gatherings as well as school. One Sunday afternoon at a “singing”, twelve-year old Avis was sitting by the open window when a young boy of twelve rode up to the window on his horse and they started talking. Avis and her new friend Billy continued their friendship and courtship until they were seventeen, and she was then united in marriage with Billy J. Box, on February 15, 1937, in Easterly, TX. As a young couple they moved to Houston, where he worked building grain tanks. They lived in Houston and raised four girls there, but he travelled in his work during the summers and took Avis and the girls with him. The kids loved the places they got to visit all over the country and had great adventures, including attending a “real” Indian PowWow.” Avis was the loving and hardworking wife, homemaker, and mother, with four girls to dress in starched and ironed clothes, even during the earlier times when she was washing on a scrub board. She took great pride in taking care of their beautiful long hair and liked to always be sparkly herself. Billy and Avis moved back to the old home-place where she was raised in the Willow Creek community in 1973. She loved the country life there, raising a garden and ducks, chickens, cattle and a hog to slaughter until they were older and slowed down. Avis was a member of the Bald Prairie Baptist Church and taught Sunday School there; there later transferred to the Oletha Baptist Church. Avis loved to cook, and cooked for a crowd, and enjoyed having the preacher in her home big meals with roast and all the trimmings. She was well loved by her nephews for “Aunt Ab’s Chocolate Pies” and famous for her three-layer coconut cakes. Even as she lived in the nursing homes the last month people still remembered those coconut cakes with seven-minute icing that she used to take to the monthly birthday parties at the nursing homes. After Billy passed away in 2010, Avis lived with her daughter Gayla in Thornton the next five years. After breaking her hip this past December, her health continued to require hospital and nursing home care and she lived briefly in the Groesbeck LTC. Anyone and everyone who ever knew or met Avis would use the term “Sweet” to describe her. As some of her last wishes to her daughters, she reminded them to “Be Sweet.” This lovely and loving mother and Mema will be dearly missed by her family. Avis was preceded in death by her parents, Riley and Iva Pace; her husband of seventy-three years, Billy J. Box (in 2010); and a grandson, Stephen Rogers. She is survived by daughter, Gwen Chalene of Lake of the Ozarks, MO.; daughter and son-in-law, Belva and Bobby Rogers of Bodcaw, Arkansas; daughter and son-in-law, Darlene and Jimmy Brown of Thornton; daughter and son-in-law, Gayla and Bill Riedinger of Thornton; eight grandchildren; ten great grandchildren; and five great-great grandchildren.