Lorene R. Strickland's Obituary
Lorene Strickland, 91, of Lewisville, Texas, passed away peacefully on Sunday, February 8, 2026. Born on April 2, 1934, in Loma Linda, California, Lorene lived a life defined by faith, service, and an extraordinary love for the people around her.
Lorene never met a stranger. With a warmth that put everyone at ease and a generous spirit that knew no bounds, she had a remarkable gift for making people feel seen, valued, and loved. Whether she was welcoming someone into her home, volunteering her time, or simply sharing a conversation, Lorene made the world feel a little smaller and a lot kinder.
A Registered Nurse by profession, Lorene devoted her career to labor and delivery, helping mothers bring new life into the world. It was a calling that suited her perfectly — she brought the same tenderness, calm, and encouragement to everything she did. For Lorene, nursing was never just a job. It was an extension of who she was: a caretaker, a comforter, and a steady presence in life’s most sacred moments.
Her faith was the cornerstone of her life. A devoted member of Crowley Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Lorene’s love for Jesus was not something she simply believed — it was something she lived. She served faithfully through the Crowley House of Hope, Prison Ministries, and as a welcoming voice answering the phone for the church’s outreach ministry. She shared the love of Jesus not through grand gestures, but through the quiet, consistent way she showed up for others.
Lorene grew up under the warm California sun in Southern California, where she built a life full of promise and possibility. But at 21, adventure called her east to Texas — drawn, as the story goes, by the prospect of meeting a tall, rich oil man. What she found instead was something far better. She found James Manuel Strickland.
From the moment they met, Lorene and James were a love story in motion. Theirs was not a quiet love tucked away in the corners of life — it was loud with laughter, rich with adventure, and anchored in a faith they shared deeply. They built a life together that was full in every sense of the word: full of joy, full of purpose, and full of each other. James could make Lorene laugh like no one else, and she could light up a room in a way that always brought him back to center. They were partners in the truest sense — raising a family, serving their church, and filling their home with the kind of warmth that people never forgot.
Lorene was, above all, a devoted wife and mother. She poured herself into her family with the same tenderness and intention she brought to everything she touched. She showed up — for every milestone, every ordinary Tuesday, every moment that mattered and plenty that seemed small at the time but turned out to be everything. Her children and grandchildren didn’t just know they were loved. They felt it in every meal she cooked, every prayer she whispered over them, and every sacrifice she made without ever calling it one.
Lorene was preceded in death by her beloved husband, James Strickland — the man she crossed state lines for and never once looked back.
She is survived by her three children: James Strickland and his wife Kellye Strickland, Jayne Strickland and her husband Mike Ballantyne, Margaret Strickland and her husband Scott Besser; her grandchildren, Lauren Jeffers and her husband Jared Jeffers, and Jennifer Strickland; her great-grandchildren, Hayden Jeffers, Taylor Jeffers, Emily Jeffers, and Anthony Kester; and a host of extended family and friends whose lives were made richer by knowing her.
Lorene lived her life with one eye on heaven. Every act of service, every prayer spoken, every hand she held— it all pointed to the same place. She walked her faith every single day, and she invited all of us to do the same. Lorene’s legacy is not measured in years, though she was blessed with 91 of them. It is measured in the lives she touched — the new mothers she steadied, the strangers who immediately became friends, her brothers and sisters in Christ, and the family she loved with everything she had. She leaves behind a world that is gentler because she was in it.
In lieu of flowers consider a donation to one of these charities near to Lorene’s heart:
Tarrant County Food Bank https://tafb.org/donate-main/
Crowley House of Hope https://crowleyhouseofhope.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&catid=2&Itemid=714
Adventist World Radio https://awr.org/product/2501-love-gift/
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