Myrtle Azalea Lovin

Harrah resident Myrtle Azalea Beaver Lovin was born September 20, 1899 at Wapanucka, Oklahoma Indian Territory to Calvin and Gertrude Howard Beaver. She was the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson Howard and Caroline Ford Howard and Amos and Lydia Beaver. She departed this life on February 2, 2006, in Harrah, OK. Myrtle was enrolled as a Choctaw Indian with 3 brothers and 2 sisters in Atoka Indian Territory in 1903. She enrolled in school at age 5 in Harrah Indian Territory Oklahoma. The family traveled by covered wagon while searching for their acreages of allotment land. They lived near Springer for a few years before moving to a permanent home on their allotment land at Claypool, between Ringling and Waurika. Myrtle was baptized at age 14, into the Seventh Day Adventist Church after a tent meeting on her grandparents farm. On August 27, 1917, she married Perry Lovin and was a mother to five children. Myrtle was an army wife at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio during World War I and survived the infamous influenza epidemic suffering severe lung abscesses in both lungs. The method of treatment was incision and drainage. Thus she had deep scars under both shoulders. Myrtle always had a vegetable and flower garden. She helped with farm work and later did some home nursing and was a custodian in a junior high school in San Bernardino, CA. After returning to Ardmore, OK, she was very active in the Community Services Center. She shared a home with her son, Herb Lovin and was very active until age 103, when she fell backward down some steps and received severe head and brain trauma. She was a resident at the Wolfe Living Center Nursing Home at Summit Ridge and celebrated her 106th birthday on September 20, 2005. She was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Summit Ridge. Myrtle was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Perry Lovin; four brothers; four sisters; two sons, Lowell Lovin and Herbert Lyndol Lovin; daughter, Dean LeMay; two grandsons and 1 great-granddaughter. She is survived by her son & daughter-in-law, Wayne & Ellene Lovin of Harrah; and her daughter, Maeola Berman of Harrah. Also grandchildren, Larry Lovin, OKC, Donald LeMay, Longview, TX, Sam Lovin and Lewis Lovin both of San Bernardino, CA, Linda LeMay, Melbourne, FL, Douglas LeMay, Hudson, IN, Corinna Lovin, Ft. Worth, TX, Crysta Fletcher, Cincinnati, OH and many great and great-great grandchildren. Services will be held at 10:00 AM, Tuesday, February 7, 2006, at the Summit Ridge Seventh Day Adventist Church, Harrah, OK, with Pastor Harvey Kornegay officiating. Interment will follow at Summit Ridge Cemetery, Harrah, OK. Services are under the direction of Smith~Parks Funeral Service in Harrah, OK.