Lula Mae Dyess Kimbrough, March 15, 1916 – October 28, 2017
It doesn't get any better than this: Lula Mae Dyess Kimbrough drank from a fountain of love for one hundred and two years, and went to sleep last Saturday with no regrets. And what was to regret? Every single day of her life, her passion was to know Jesus Christ, whom she did, and she awoke to the splendor of His immediate presence on October 28, 2017. The next person she spoke to was Rex, her husband of 73 years. He was skinny and young again, and had fiery red hair. Her mother once called him a rooster, but he became a travelling Church of Christ preacher. They married when Lula was 16. When she was pregnant with her first child, Wendell, the brakes went out on the traveling gospel bus in which they lived, and she and Rex survived a harrowing downhill runaway ride, even so, no regrets.
No dreary solitary slide into the decrepitude for Lula: She went to sleep in her room in the house where she lived with her daughter Shari and two granddaughters, next door to a third granddaughter and a great-granddaughter, across the street from yet a fourth granddaughter. Her health was robust and her mind was sharp; she was a domino expert, and it is conceded that she won her last game of Forty- Two on Friday.
Lula was born in Bell County, Texas to John and Idabelle Dyess on March 15, 1916, " the Ides of March," while World War I was in full storm. She had seven siblings.
Lula had four children of her own; Wendell, and Shari ( this author's mother-in-law), and Norma, and David, then came 15 grandchildren, 18 great- grandchildren, and 23 great-great-grandchildren, counting the one who is still in the oven. With them all she shared a great many things: home cooked lunches on school days, her cornbread recipe, her middle name in one case, a pronounced hotness gene that run through the females, her Spartan frugality, her love of God, and her faith in Jesus Christ. Along the way, every child grandchild, every last one of them and their spouses - have professed their faith in Jesus Christ.
No Regrets. It doesn't get any better.
There will be a celebration of Lula's life at the Emma Church of Christ, 903 Tilford Ave. in Ralls, Texas at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, November 4, 2017. Interment will follow at the Ralls Cemetery under the care of Adams Funeral Home of Ralls. You are welcome to attend. You won't regret it. Online condolences can be sent to www.adamsfuneral.com.


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