Doris Beatrice Crews' Obituary
Doris Beatrice Baker-Crews shed her mortal coil on All Souls’ Day, November 2 shortly after breakfast, her favorite meal of the day. She lived a remarkable ninety-nine years, born August 4, 1921 in Muskogee, Oklahoma to Bert and Gertrude Baker, Boomer-Sooner Pioneers, themselves of amazing America stock.
Struck with scarlet fever as a child, Doris was rendered partially deaf for many of her early school years. Teachers moved her to the front of the class where she learned to read lips. School kids teased her and she would later say, “Children can be amazingly cruel.”
Her brother Bert O. Baker joined the Army Air Force during World War II, and Doris, fresh out of secretarial school with high marks in short hand, took an administrative job at Camp Gruber, an Oklahoma internment facility for German prisoners of war. “We had regular German boys, not those goose-stepping Nazis.” Doris often told. “Some of them were handsome.” When her brother was shot down over Austria, they informed Doris about the geography of the area and the camp he would be held.
One night in March 1944, a young pilot driving through Muskogee on his way to report for duty had a flat tire, and the local USO hooked him up with the Baker family for dinner. The west Texas Aggie red-head was smitten and wrote her throughout the war, “but a lot of boys wrote me.” Doris would say. He persisted and returned twenty months to the day, to ask for her hand. They were married two months later and moved to Dallas, Texas and on to the new suburb of Garland.
The family would vacation summers in the Rockies and Eastern Seaboard pulling a small camper trailer, often part of a small caravan with two other families, each having two sons about the same age as her two boys. Doris never learned to swim but was proud of learning computers late in life when she took a job at the Dallas Market.
Doris is survived by her sons Bert Crews and Charlie Crews; his wife Lynne Bozeman-Crews; their children, Doris’ grand children Cara Crews-McAnelly, Clint Crews, and Cassie Crews-Ryland; their spouses Cory McAnelly, Staci Olson-Crews, and Justin Ryland. Doris has eight great grand children that lighted her heart with joy: Charley and Cooper McAnelly, Jack and Andi Crews, Hudson, Jacob, Aislyn, and Graham Ryland.
Services will be held at Restland Funeral Home, Dallas Texas on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 with viewing from 10:00-11:00 followed by graveside services at 11:30. In lieu of flowers, family requests donations be made to First United Methodist Church, Garland , Texas.
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