Wilma Ruth Lewis

Wilma Ruth Krebs was born the youngest of four children to Emil and Meca Krebs on the family homestead in Avery, Oklahoma, on December 5, 1924, and passed away on December 23, 2023, at the age of 99 years. Her father passed when she was 12 so she began to help her older brother with the daily task of farming and raising livestock on their 160 acres. She was proud that she learned many farming skills and she could drive a team of four horses as well as anyone else.

She began her education in a one room schoolhouse. She then attended Cushing High School, graduating in 1943.

After high school, she worked at Parlett’s Photo Studio in Cushing and enjoyed all aspects of photography and picture development.

She met Clyde Lewis, and they married in 1945 and celebrated 55 plus years of marriage until his passing in 2001. To this union four children were born: Linda, Jim, Tom and Lenita.

When the children were younger, she was a stay-at-home mom, and later went to work in the Agra school cafeteria where she enjoyed preparing and serving food to elementary and high school students.

Later, she and Clyde rented and began their career together operating a full-service gasoline station. They went on to build their own full-service station on the south edge of Agra. She and Clyde both enjoyed giving out a piece of bubblegum and a sucker to all the children who came to the station with their parents. For a while, she worked at Oklahoma State University as a housekeeper for one of the Sororities, while also working at the station at the end of the day. After they retired and sold the station, she and Clyde delivered the Shop and Swap Advertiser in this area for many years.

She always had a vegetable garden, canning and preserving many meals for the family over the years. She continued her vegetable gardening as well as her love for flowers until she moved to Cushing and could no longer have a big garden, but she did have beautiful flower beds. She was honored with the “Yard of the Week” award by the City of Cushing for her beautiful yard. She even continued to mow and trim her own yard until she was in her eighties.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Clyde, great-grandson Clayton Saucier, grandson Joseph Jester, son-inlaw Glenn Gillespie, sisters Francis and Esther Wolff and brother Edward Krebs.

She leaves behind her children, Linda (Bill) Jester, Jim (Kay) Lewis of Yale, OK, Tom (Paula) Lewis of Stillwater, OK and Lenita Gillespie of Cushing, OK; grandchildren, Tammy (Russ) Ringgenberg of Yale, OK, Jennifer (Paul) Grau of Cabot, AR, Dusty Lewis of Yale, OK, Amanda (Bobby) Saucier of Keller, TX, Aaron (Mandy) Lewis of Newcastle, OK, Andrea (Josh) Evans of Stillwater, OK, James Gillespie of Casa Grande, AZ, Cole Gillespie of Edmond, OK, and Vicki Gillespie of Columbia, KY; twentyone great grandchildren, 4 greatgreat grandchildren, with the fifth one due in February, and many more family and friends.

A visitation will be on from 4PM – 8PM on Thursday, December 28 at Palmer Marler Funaerl Home in Cushing, Oklahoma. Graveside services for Wilma are scheduled for 10AM on December 29 at the Greenwood Cemetery southeast of Yale, Oklahoma.