Services for Mary Lou Loman Thompson will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, at Criswell Funeral Home chapel in Ada. Interment will be in New Bethel Cemetery, Byng. Mrs. Thompson died Jan. 17 at her home in Byng. She was 88.
Mary Loman was born May 10, 1934, in Pontotoc, Ok, the fifth of six children of Jasper Ralph and Ruby Hilliard Loman. She lived most of her childhood in the Byng-Homer area. She attended Byng Schools through 11th grade and graduated from Weleetka High School in 1952.
She married Charles Donald Thompson on May 23, 1951, at Byng. The couple were married for 55 years. They lived in several small towns across Oklahoma, including St. Louis, Weleetka, Konawa, Waurika, and more than 40 years in Ardmore. She was predeceased by Mr. Thompson in 2016.
In 2017, she was reintroduced to a Byng friend, Odell Deaton, at a school reunion. They married in November. Mr. Deaton passed away in 2019.
Mrs. Thompson has two children, Mickey of OKC, and wife Kym, and Jon of Byng, and wife Kathy. She has eight grandchildren – Matt Thompson, Alto, N.M., Lauren Thompson, OKC, Heath Thompson, Austin, Tx., Brooks Thompson, League City, Tx., David Thompson, Tulsa, Jennifer Thompson, Broken Arrow, Tasha Wilk, Washington, Ok., and Jacob Fleck, Blanchard. She has 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.
She also is survived by a sister, Ellen Cantrell of Norman. She was predeceased by a brother, Earl (Jerry), and sisters Elnora Teel, Verna Mae Sweeney and Clara Marie Loman.
Mrs. Thompson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Central State College. She was a career elementary educator, teaching more than 25 years at Franklin and Will Rogers Schools in Ardmore. She also was a well-known Bible study teacher in both the Ardmore and Ada areas. She helped organize and taught dozens of Bible classes over a span of more than 40 years.
She spent the final 10 years of her life on land her parents purchased east of Byng in 1944 with money they had earned as migrant farm workers in California. She was a Southern Baptist all her life and a faithful member of many churches, but primarily the First Baptist Church of Ardmore and the New Bethel Baptist Church of Byng.
Friends and family wishing to make memorial contributions in her name may do so to the New Bethel Baptist Church, Route 3, Ada, Ok.
Criswell Funeral Home, Ada
