Kay Shirley Oates

Kay Shirley Oates

Kay Dartez Moore Oates passed away on the morning of July 24th at her home in Village Mills, Texas. She died as she lived, with her husband of 38 years, Charles by her side.  She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two years ago, and the prognosis was grim, but Kay had her own timeline. “I think I’ll go to 80, and then I’m out of here,” she announced. She was true to her word.

She was born on January 3, 1936 in Port Arthur, Texas to Anastasia and Conrad Dartez. Both of her parents were Cajun and spoke little English or cared to. Her family was devoutly Catholic. As a child, she treasured her purple rosary and was devastated when she lost it. Charles remembered the story and many years later, he bought her an identical replacement as a Christmas gift. It brought her to tears.  She was private about her faith, but the fine crepe pages of her Bible were lined in pen, marking verses meaningful to her.  Kay was the embodiment of a Christian. Her faith was practiced in the pew on occasion but more often in the compassion and quiet charity she bestowed on countless people throughout her life.

She came from modest beginnings. Her father worked in the belly of the Texaco refinery. He was a gentle man who loved to garden and taught her to horseback ride. She called him “Daddy” until his death in 1979.  Her mother was a stout woman who could play spoons and crack a bullwhip like a Wild West showman.  Kay was the polar opposite. The youngest of five, she was a small, sensitive girl, shy and retiring. She was a bright student and especially excelled in literature and writing. At the age of 11, with the encouragement of her teacher, her work was published alongside adults in a poetry anthology, a fact she only mentioned to her family well into her sixties.

While in junior high, she met Luther Moore who ran over her with his bicycle to get her attention. They married after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, then moved to Nederland and had three children Cory, Lori and Mary. She was a stay-at-home mother who loved her work. She was an incredible cook, and her children never woke without finding their mother in the kitchen, still in pin curls, whistling a tune and cooking up a favorite breakfast, including her famous sugar-laden French toast. Like many women of her day, a coffee can of bacon fat was never far from her skillet. She was a natural at interior design and an immaculate housekeeper. She’d dance around the house, pushing her prized 50-pound Kirby-brand vacuum, blaring Tom Jones singing “What’s New Pussycat” while making tracks in the gold shag carpeting. Kay and Luther divorced in 1977. Even many years after they separated, Luther called Kay while dying of cancer. The words they shared were between them. Her kindness and capacity for forgiveness was a comfort that many reached for in their darkest hours.

In 1978, she married Charles, a family friend for decades. Together, they left Nederland and blended six children, ages 5 to 18, and started a new life on a patch of land out in the Big Thicket of Silsbee. For a year, they crowded the new family into a little red camp house as they built their dream home: a two-story log cabin overlooking the banks of Beech Creek.  If that wasn’t enough on their plate, they bought a tiny, rundown gas station on the outskirts of Silsbee and made it a successful community hub for over 30 years. Oates’ Country Corner brought them some of their happiest memories and was a source of lifelong friends.  

Kay’s generosity was limitless. So much so that the bag boys at Brookshire’s would pummel one another to haul her groceries out to the car.  She was mindful of her humble roots and understood what it meant to work hard to make ends meet.  

She took pleasure in simple things. She loved going to the beauty shop on Thursdays and cutting up with her “Magnolia” gang. She enjoyed a good book and a quilt.  She loved Steen syrup on burnt toast. She loved Margaritas, Diet Coke and Bob Seger. She loved to dance. She recorded endless episode of “Everybody Love Raymond”—even though everybody didn’t love Raymond—and would argue its merits against anyone who dared challenge her. She also had a standing TV date on Sundays with Joel Osteen, who she liked to refer to as just “Joel.” As in, “Check to see if Joel is on.” She loved the 70s-era movie, A Star is Born and The Bridges of Madison County, the first time she ever endorsed a movie over a book. She was a fantastic storyteller, although not always known for her accuracy. While relaying the details of she and Charles’ tandem bungee jump during a Florida vacation, she miscalculated the 150-foot plunge for 750 feet and began regularly reporting it as such. “But Mom,” her son argued, “The St. Louis Arch is nearly 700 feet.” “Well, it was pretty darn high,” she insisted.

Kay was a fiercely protective mother.  When a teacher threatened to cut off her teenaged son’s hair, she went up to the school to tell the teacher she’d get a haircut of her own if she dared try.  When needed, she would offer earnest words of comfort at any hour. She would also call your work extension during the day and yell, “Snakes on a Plane!” and hang up laughing.

She was known to alter greeting cards to her liking. Gender or occasion were no obstacle for her editing pen.  Happy Graduation? Not so fast. As she would explain in the margin, “I liked the picture, but the greeting didn’t match. It does now. Happy birthday.”

Kay was also a loving caregiver for her brothers and sisters. She was unable to have a successful pregnancy for years, so many of her nieces and nephews were like her children to her. Later, as each of her siblings preceded her in death, she carried the heaviness of the loss, bearing the lonely designation of the last one to remain. 

She cherished her inherited family as much as any of her lifelong kin. She loved her stepsons, Mark, Mike and Brad like her own. And they treated her with the compassion and love of a biological mother until her very last day. She adored her in-laws, Edith and Calvin, who welcomed her with open arms from the first time they met her. Sister and brother-in-law Linda and Charley DeCuir meant as much as any sibling could to her. And their daughter Chrissy, another niece she could just as well include in her own brood. Daughter-in-law Pam was devoted to Kay, cooking food faster than they could freeze it. Her step-grandchildren were her first-run as a grandmother, and she relished the role. She had the receipts from Wal-Mart to prove it.

As she grew older, Retinitis Pigmentosa, an incurable eye disease, claimed her vision while osteo-arthritis stole her ability to walk. But still, she fought. 

Despite her decline, she was relentlessly optimistic. Where others had self-pity, she had hope. When she was first told she was going blind in her mid-40s, she bought an expensive camera and took up photography. She would explore the Thicket at dawn and capture the stillness of the piney woods. She was almost completely blind by her sixties. Those photos are the last testaments to how she saw the world. 

And so are all who knew her. And are better for it. Occasionally, people float into this world that are truly good. Maybe you get to know them for a little while. Or you’re lucky enough to marry them or be parented by them. In that way, her friends and family were fortunate. She faced life with joy and bravery. It was honor for the many who were touched by it.

Survivors include her husband, Charles Oates; children, Cory Moore, Lori Moore Allen and her husband Jeff, Mary Moore and her husband T.J., Mark Oates and his wife Anne, Michael Oates and his wife Pam, and Brad Oates. Grandchildren include Leeanna, Rose, Wade, Joshua, Dawson, Scarlett and Emmanuelle along with many great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews whom she all loved dearly.

Kay died on a Sunday. She died as she would have wanted, at her home with Charles, the lake as the backdrop to her hospital bed. In the last few weeks, the dam was released, causing the man-made lake to recede away, leaving only a trough of dirt and arid stumps, as if even the waters knew it was her time. But the flow of family, stories and love never ebbed. She was surrounded.

She kissed her youngest grandchild and hours later slipped away with one last look at the love of her life and then a look beyond.

Était aveugle, mais maintenant elle vois.

Kay’s greatest hope was to find a cure for the genetic disease that has caused blindness in her family for three generations. Please consider a memorial donation to Retinitis Pigmentosa International so her grandchildren may see their own.

www.rpinternational.org/donate-now

You may also consider a donation in Kay’s honor to the National Parkinson Foundation, helping to fund research for a disease she fought with dignity and prayed no one else ever suffer. 

www.parkinson.org/get-involved/ways-to-give

For more on Kay’s life :

https://alcalde.texasexes.org/2016/06/store-owners-daughter/