Mom's passing

This has been a very trying week for us. There has been a numerous family and health challenges. Eddie’s birthday was on Monday, February 10th. The day began with the phone call from his brother telling of his mom’s passing a few hours earlier. His mom, Lois, had been seriously ill for the last couple months. We knew her time was not long and she was likely to pass on at anytime. The last several weeks she has been on hospice care. 
Fortunately, we were able to spend some time with her over the Thanksgiving holiday. During this time, she was still aware of the people around her and her surroundings. 
Dying on a relative’s birthday has been somewhat a family trait. Lois’s mother died on her birthday. And there have been several other instances of the phenomenon in the last couple of generations. 
Eddie wrote this beautiful, sweet obituary notice of his mother for local publication in Paris, Tennessee. 

Long-time Paris resident Lois Doughty Reynolds passed away on February 10, 2014 after a prolonged illness.  A silent partner in Furniture Exchange, Co. with her son and store manager Mike, Ms. Reynolds died at the age of 83 after enduring over fifty years of severe asthma and increasingly multiple other maladies.  
Born on December 5, 1930 in what was known as “Graystown” (a rural community now at the bottom of Kentucky Lake), Ms. Reynolds grew up in a loving, very close family of three daughters, her mother (former teacher/then homemaker, the late Cozie Futrell Doughty) and her father (a L&N Railroad worker, the late Elbert S. Doughty).  Her family moved often (Louisville, Puryear, Paris, Henry), with she and her sisters attending several schools along the way.  She graduated from Henry High School in 1948 and then began studying to be a Registered Nurse at the then Nobles Hospital of Paris.  Near the end of her preparation, she met and married the late Edward L. Reynolds, to whom she was married for 37 years.
While she was sick off and on her entire adult life and probably spent in total over two years of her life in the hospitals of Paris, Jackson, Nashville, and Memphis, Ms. Reynolds still found time to develop many interests and skills.  She was an outstanding cook and known for her decorated, four-layer cakes; her decadent fudge and brownies; and especially for her vanilla/chocolate pinwheel cookies.  She loved setting elaborate tables for entertaining her family at holidays; and the Super Bowl parties she hosted for her son Mike and his friends are still renowned.  She was also skilled in many decorative arts (decoupage, flower-arranging, shadow-box creations, etc.) as well as creative sewing of kids’ and grandkids’ Halloween/party costumes.  
The key joys of Ms. Reynolds’ life were her sons Eddie & Mike and their families.  Her life was often centered in making their lives the best she could.  Nothing gave her more happiness as her grandkids were growing up than to spend hours working puzzles, playing games, looking at photo albums, or cooking together.
Ms. Reynolds is survived by her two sons and their families: Mike of Paris and son Matt of Murfreesburo and daughter Katie of Paris; Eddie and his husband Ed of Palo Alto, CA and sons Joshua, Eli, and Jonathan, all of the San Francisco Bay Area, CA.  She is also survived by her sister Kathy and her husband Tom of Pinole, CA as well by many wonderful nieces and nephews of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and California.
She was also preceded in death by a sister Edna Lee Tapp.  
In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to St. Jude Children’s Hospital in memory of Ms. Reynolds.