Sunday, March 15, 2009
















It is not possible to sum up on one page the life of
Opal Fleetwood who lived 98 years, 4 months, and 6 days.
She was born Hattie Opal Faye Simon on October 26, 1910
and lived a very full and fruitful life. She Married
Marion Fleetwood in 1929 and raised five children:
Paul (Bob) Fleetwood, Billy Fleetwood, Kenneth Fleetwood,
Jenny (Fleetwood) Starkey, and Jimmy Fleetwood. She had
12 grandchildren, 23 great grandchildren, and
5 great great grandchildren.

Opal loved her family and extended family and enjoyed dining,
visiting, and playing together. She loved to garden, fish, and
playing card games. High Five was her all time favorite game.
She loved to talk about the old days with her mom and dad and
brothers and sisters when they lived in Fern Nook on the farm
by the Little Black River. She liked to remember the trips she
went on to Hawaii, Nova Scotia, Colorado, New Mexico, and
Lake of the Ozarks where the fishing was good but fun with
daughter's-in-law Shirley, Wanda, and Ann was even better.

The "Little General" as she was affectionately known had an
amazing memory right up until she died. She didn't need a
calendar to remember her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids
birthdays because the dates were all in her head. Just recently
she repeated the entire preamble to the constitution which she
had learned in Grade school.

She always had a birthday card with a dollar in it for her grandkids:
Mike, Tandy, Terry, Joseph, Sandy, Kelly, Laurie, Ricky, Kenneth,
Becky, Scott, and Stacy. She always wrote in the card, "Remember
Old Granny loves you".

Her favorite work was gardening. She loved and tended every
little shoot and fought the bugs like a warrior. Oh! How she
(and the whole family) loved her fresh vegetables. She had a
green thumb, and her house was always full of plants and flowers.

Opal was a believing Christian. She kept her well worn Bible next
to her on the couch and read from it daily. She trusted the Lord
for eternal life and spoke gratefully of it shortly before she died.
She will be missed terribly.

Praise the Lord for giving her to us all for such a long time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Laurie, I grew fond of your Grandma Opal, through your posts, and I admired her,too. (And I still appreciate her household tip on making your own cleaning spray.) :)

Please accept my belated condolences, which are mixed with joy that she was a Christian.

LeftCoastOnlooker said...

Laurie, I am sory for you all, that you'll miss such a wonderful, beautiful, Godly woman. I look forward to meeting her in Heaven!