Evelyn Lawrence

Evelyn Patricia Lawrence, 97, passed away on May 14, 2012, in Lockhart, Texas. She will be greatly missed by many relatives and friends throughout Texas and beyond.

Evelyn was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on Aug. 6, 1914, to Richard and Jossie Hamilton, originally of Corsicana. Evelyn had two sisters, Ruth and Vivian. Their father was killed by gangsters during prohibition in

1920 when Evelyn was six.

She was educated in Port Arthur and Toledo, Ohio, where her mother and stepfather, Frank Schnautz, moved when she was a teenager. She married Milton Carroll Lawrence in 1941 in Texas at the age of 26, and had two children, Sheila Ruth Lawrence Goss and Michael Patrick Lawrence.

Although she sold real estate and taught piano during her married life, she was primarily a homemaker until her husband’s death in 1964. At that time, she returned to work full time in a variety of positions, culminating at Houston’s Texas Medical Center in the Texas Children’s Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute.

She helped heart surgeon Denton Cooley launch the Journal of the Texas Heart Institute and was its first managing editor. She also helped edit several cardiology textbooks and “The Days of my Years,” a book about Houston philanthropist Leopold Meyer.

After her retirement, she enjoyed ballroom dancing and won six medals in national competitions. She was a voracious reader all her life and enjoyed writing fiction and poetry.

She is survived by her daughter, Sheila Goss and husband, Doug, of Lockhart; her son, Mike, of San Antonio; granddaughters, Andrea Nicole Spencer Stasinski and David, of Platteville, Colo., and Vicki Robin Spencer Vallee and Scott, of Austin; great-grandchildren: Kelsie and Max Vallee, and Lance and Blair Stasinski; step-granddaughter, Winona Goss; and many loving friends, including Virginia Baxt, of Tomball, and Leslie, Frank and Conor Foran, of St. Louis. The family is very greatful for the loving attention given to Evelyn during her stay at the Methodist Golden Age and Parkview retirement communities in Lockhart. Evelyn coped with essential tremor for her entire adult life and was a member of the International Essential Tremor Foundation, P.O. Box 14005, Lenexa, Kan., 66285-4005. She would have appreciated any contributions to that organization in her memory.

Arrangements under the care and guidance of McCurdy Funeral Home, 105 E. Pecan, Lockhart, Texas, 78644 (512) 398-4791.