On September 16, 1944, in Marlin, Texas, Lorean Holloway and Willie D. Humphrey were blessed with a beautiful daughter and she was named Bettye Jean Holloway.
Bettye Jean grew up in Marlin and attended its public schools. Surrounded by loving family, she learned how to sew from her Aunt May Lee Jackson, and she took what some saw as a chore and skill that went from a hobby to her passion. She was known to be an awesome seamstress, able to sew anything she wanted from everyday clothes for her boys to professional prom/wedding dresses.
She worked for several years in Fort Worth in the 1970s and 1980’s for a clothing factory named Salty’s, with a side hobby of being an independent sales representative for Avon.
Bettye was blessed to give birth to four boys, and although it was rumored, she had a favorite, she proclaimed to adore the four of them the same. What she did for one she would do for all, and she never left out her nephew Kevin.
In 1978, she married Bobby Gene Thomas, who loved and adored her. In 1994, Mrs. Thomas suffered a brain aneurysm which left her over a short period of time one hundred percent disabled, and yet her husband loved and cared for her until his demise in 2015.
At that point her four sons worked together, each doing his part in making sure she was comfortable and wanted for nothing in her golden years.
Mrs. Thomas is preceded in death by her husband, Bobby; her mother, Lorean; her father, Willie D aka “Big Bill”; two sisters, Deloris “Billie” Humphrey, & Pearlie Jean Coates; two brothers, Michael Humphrey, & Henry Benjamin, Jr. and a great granddaughter Angel Nicole Nichols.
She leaves to cherish her memories four sons, Paul Humphrey (Kim Jackson), Phillip Humphrey of Marlin, Texas, Pastor Quenton F. Holloway, and Cannon R. Henry (Donya) of Fort Worth; three brothers, Billie E McMorris, Sr. (Henrietta) of San Antonio, Texas, Marion Humphrey and Ricky Humphrey (Brenda Kay) of Marlin, Texas; 8 grandchildren; 8 great grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews and cousins.
