MARY FRANCES (FRANKIE) GORDON BROWN

Funeral for Mary Frances (Frankie) Gordon Brown, 89, was at 10 a.m. March 19 in the Autry Funeral Home chapel with the Rev. Dr. Bruce Webb officiating. Burial was at 10 a.m. March 20 at East View Cemetery in Vernon.

Mrs. Brown died March 15. She was born in Bush Knob, near Throckmorton, June 24, 1917, the fourth child of six children of Frances Niles and Julia Jane Cole Gordon. She married Paul James Brown Oct. 15, 1939. For more than 20 years, they lived in Vernon, where Mr. Brown worked for the Texas Highway Department.

After his death, she served one year as a dorm mother for San Marcos Baptist Academy and then moved to Jacksonville, to be near two of her sisters. For 11 years, she was a teacher's aide for remedial students and substitute teacher in the Jacksonville Independent School District. She was a member of the Mary Martha Sunday School Class of Central Baptist Church.

In Vernon, during the 1950's and 60's, she served in various roles for the First Baptist Church including president of Women's Missionary Union, superintendent of the Junior Sunday School Department, Director of the Junior Department for Vacation Bible School and several church committees.

Preceding her in death were her husband, Paul James Brown on Dec. 8, 1972, her parents, Francis and Julia Gordon; one sister, Lois Gordon Thomas; and two brothers, Clifford Raymond Gordon and Harrell Edwin Gordon.

Surviving are her two sons and their wives Randell and Judy Brown, of Fort Worth and Dr. James Michael and Kay Brown of Clear Lake; two sisters and a brother-in-law, Virginia and Roland Offord and Ethelyne Sparkman, all of Jacksonville; two grandchildren, Daniel Paul Brown and his wife, Amanda, of Houston and Kathryn Brown Horner and her husband, Mitchell, of Waco; and two great-grandchildren, Madeline Carole Brown and Karoline Kay Horner; one niece, Julie Owen; and three nephews, Hamlin Offord, David Gordon and Lynn Sparkman.