Willie Wilcox

A memorial service for Willie Mae Sanders Wilcox will be held on Monday, October 4, at 10:00 a.m. at the First Baptist Church in Artesia, New Mexico. Mrs. Wilcox died in Roswell on Friday, October 1, 2004. The family will receive friends at the family home Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon. Visitation at the funeral home is not scheduled. Willie Mae Sanders was born May 18, 1929, to A. Dan and Minnie Belle Sanders, now deceased, at their farm home near Utica, in Bryan County, Oklahoma. She was the last of six children, of whom one, Noby Sanders, Colbert, Oklahoma, survives. Brothers Earnest and Foy Sanders and sisters Nadelle Lyday and Ocie Garner preceded her in death. After graduating from Utica High School in 1946, she moved to Durant, Oklahoma where she attended Southeastern State College part time. Her first job was for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, known as the AAA, as an office clerk. She then worked as church secretary of the First Baptist Church in Durant for several years. On April 30, 1950, she married Lyndell Otis Lucky Wilcox in Durant. They moved to Parsons, Kansas, where he was a communications technician for the M K and T Railroad. In 1954, they moved to Artesia, New Mexico, where he was chief engineer for radio station KSVP. He later worked as a two-way radio technician. He preceded her in death September 18, 1992. Willie Mae and Lucky had five children who all survive. They are Freida Speers, husband Jim, Bennington, Oklahoma; Nancy White, husband Don, Conway, Arkansas; A. D. Wilcox, wife Amy, Dallas, Georgia; Mary Marley, husband Bill, Roswell, New Mexico; and Margaret Russell, husband Carl, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Grandchildren are: Sarah and Josiah Cindy Speers, Alan Cathy, Daniel Amy, Anthony, and Austin White, Adam Wilcox, Stephen and John Russell, Cort, Dane, and Reid Marley, and Daniel Tanya Duncan. Also surviving are two great-grandchildren, Trystan Wilcox and Isabelle White. Willie Mae and children consider the children of special friends Jim and Kim Scroggin, Tyler Shasta and Staci her Artesia grandchildren. All grandchildren have been designated as honorary pallbearers. Also surviving are many nieces, nephews, cousins, and numerous friends. Willie Mae lived on Runyan Avenue for forty-six years. Her Runyan neighbors were an important part of her life. Willie Mae became a Christian at the age of ten or eleven and was baptized in the Blue River, near Bennington, Oklahoma. She began teaching Sunday School at the age of nineteen, and was active in Women's Missionary Union for many years. She was a member of First Baptist Church, Artesia. The family suggests memorial contributions to the Benevolence Fund or Bereavement Meals Ministry, First Baptist Church, 322 W. Grand Ave., Artesia, NM 88210.