Eunice Carolyn Johnson Halbert

Eunice Carolyn Johnson Halbert was called home to be with Jesus in heaven on November 17, 2017, in Wichita Falls. Celebration services were held at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 22, 2017, at the Crowell United Methodist Church with Rev. Pat Rodriguez, Pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Crowell Eunice officiating. Burial will follow at the Crowell Cemetery.

Carolyn Halbert was born on January 31, 1913, in Clarendon to Carrie and David Johnson. She attended public schools there and attended Clarendon Junior College. She graduated valedictorian from Clarendon Grade School, Clarendon High School and Clarendon Junior College. Then she spent two summers at Simmons University and one full year at the University of Texas in Austin where she graduated with honors in 1936.

At age 19 she joined forces with Bob Dillard, principal, and Agatha Taylor, teaching two years at the intermediate grades, at Windy Valley, some four miles south of Lelia Lake. Then, for one year, she taught at Chamberlain School, which was a three-teacher school but by attending college in the summers she emerged from UT with three years of college and three years of teaching. Following her final college year, she accepted the position of English teacher at Ozona.

On February 20, 1937, she married Grady Halbert of Foard County, Texas. When his father, EV Halbert, died in 1939, the couple moved to Foard City where Grady became manager of his mother’s farms. They lived there and later a Crowell until 2000 when they moved to Wichita Falls, living at rolling meadows, a retirement center. Eunice was preceded in death by her parents, one sister, Sybil and two brothers, Hooker who died at nine months and Gilbert who died as a teenager and finally her husband William Grady Halbert who died in 2004.

Eunice excelled in her grades, enjoyed high school and college plays, studied expression from the fourth grade until her Senior speech recital in 1932. She was a member of the Little Theater of Clarendon. She then shared her talent by giving private lessons for nine years in speaking and book reviews. She became an award winning speaker. She was an active member in the Columbian study club from 1938 and various civic clubs until moving to Wichita Falls. She taught Sunday School at the Crowell United Methodist Church.

She and Grady spent many happy summers on and in the mountains around South Fork County making lifelong friends and memories. They also traveled the world with health and vigor.

She authored three novellas, two concerning Cynthia Ann Parker, wife of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker: Two Feathers and Comanche Love and, finally, the third, her biography, The Tin Cup relating to her remarkable memories from the age of three until she left the nest to teach in Ozona.

She is survived by son Bill Halbert from Denver, Coloradp and daughter Hollis Harper from Granbury, Texas and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Memorials may be made to the First United Methodist Church of Crowell, Friends of the Library in Crowell or a charity of your choice.