Lois Wilson McGarity

Lois Wilson McGarity passed away early this week at Westminster Manor in Austin. She was 90 years old.

Lois was raised in Russellville, Alabama, by her parents Ralph C. and Chamintney S. Thomas. After attending Russellville High School, she graduated from Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, where she met her future husband, the Reverend Owen McGarity, Jr.

A devoted wife and mother, Lois was an integral part of Owen’s ministries at Presbyterian churches in Illinois, Indiana and Texas. She was also an active participant in the civic life of the towns where she lived.

Lois received a Texas Elementary Education Certificate from Lamar University in 1966, and she later received a Special Education Certificate from West Texas State University. From 1966 until her retirement, Lois taught elementary and special education students in Port Neches, Clarendon, Shiner, and Gonzales, Texas. In 1983, she was listed as one of the “Most Prominent Educators of Texas.”

Lois devoted many of her free hours to documenting and archiving past and present comings and goings of six generations of her large family, an act of love for which her descendants will forever be grateful.

Lois is survived by her brother, Dr. James Thomas; her children Thomas and wife Cathleen, Arthur and wife Jane, Elizabeth Silva and husband Richard, Ralph and wife Ida, and Mary Nell Clark and husband John; 14 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

A service to celebrate Lois McGarity’s life will be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3208 Exposition Boulevard, Austin, Texas on Friday, April 8, at 3:00 PM. A service of interment will be held at the Gonzales Memorial Park Woodmen of the World Cemetery in Gonzales, Texas on Saturday, April 9, at 11:00 AM.

Donations in lieu of flowers should be sent to Westminster Presbyterian Church for the One Great Hour of Sharing collection.

Arrangements under the care and direction of Seydler-Hill Funeral Home, 906 St. Paul, Gonzales, TX.