Melba Barnhart Wideman, 87 of Ralls, passed away peacefully on July 24, 2017 in Lubbock.
Visitation will be held on Friday, July 28, 2017 at 6PM at Adams Funeral Home in Ralls. Celebration of Life Memorial services will be 1PM Saturday, July 29, 2017 at the First Baptist Church in Ralls, TX. Pallbearers will be her six grandsons; Matt Wideman, Mitch Wideman, Randy Wideman, Chad Wideman, Chance Wideman, and Dr. Brooks Grant. Honorary Pallbearers are; Hal Reese, Joe Popchoke, Dwight Roye, Santos Mata, Eldon Nipp, Charles Hilliard, Allyson Foster, Tarun Patel and Allan Adams.
Melba Dalphine Barnhart Wideman was born August 6, 1929 in O'Donnell, TX to the late Dalton Andrew and Imogene McMurtrey Barnhart. From O'Donnell, the Barnhart family moved to Crosby County in 1934. Melba was the second child of four that grew up in the Cone community. It was in Cone that Melba met Morris Haney Wideman. They married in Cone on July 6, 1946 and attended Wayland Baptist College in Plainview for one year. In 1947, they returned to Cone to farm and started their family. From this union, four children were born.
Melba was always active in her two church homes, Cone Baptist Church and First Baptist Church Ralls, playing the piano, singing in the choir and teaching Sunday School Classes. She served the Cone Community as a weekly writer of the Cone Community News for the Ralls Banner. She proudly worked part-time for the Ralls Banner as a typesetter for Afton Richards. Melba also worked as a receptionist for Carter-Adams Funeral Home for many years. She loved her family and her friends, doing for them more than for herself. As a farmer's wife, she would prepare and bring lunch and cold drinks to Haney, the kids and field hands working on the farm during the hot summer days. In her lifetime, she walked many miles hoeing weeds in the cotton and sorghum fields, helped maintain the family garden, harvested the vegetables and canned them alongside her mother. Begining in 1979, Melba began decorating cakes and made hundreds of birthday and wedding cakes for those she loved.
For many years, Melba would go weekly to the Ralls Nursing Home to play the piano and entertain the residents there with the Glory Singers from First Baptist Church Ralls. At Christmas, she enjoyed caroling on Christmas Eve to family and friends with all her family participating.
Melba is preceded in death by her husband, Morris Haney Wideman, her parents, her sister, Helen Reese, and grandson Brent Topper.
She is survived by her children; Spike Wideman and wife Camilla of Lubbock, Mark Wideman and wife Linda of Plainview, Mel Wideman and wife Judy of Cave Creek, AZ and Mardi Grant and husband Rick of Abilene, TX., 10 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-granddaughter, a sister, Johnie Hilliard and husband Nelson of Mesquite, TX and brother, David Barnhart and wife Gina of Houston and many special friends and caretakers.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the First Baptist Church of Ralls, TX, and that memories be shared at www.adamsfuneral.com.
Services are under the direction of Adams Funeral Home in Ralls, TX.