May 16, 1929 – May 9, 2015 Milton,
Frances Anne Milton, beloved educator, wife, and mother, died in Longview on Saturday, May 9, just one week shy of her 86th birthday, after a protracted decline from Alzheimer’s disease.
Mrs. Milton was a fixture of Wolfe City High School for almost two decades, beginning in the mid-1960s, conducting “business” classes in typing, bookkeeping, and shorthand. This was before computers were commonplace and typewriting morphed into keyboarding, and when stenography was still an occupation. Toward the end of her career at WCHS, she was the school guidance counselor, and always had a sympathetic ear for the teen angst and juvenile dilemmas of her students, both in her counseling office and as monitor of study-hall. Many of her former students have been heard to say, “Mrs. Milton was my favorite teacher.”
Frances Anne Sharp was born on May 16, 1929, the fifth child and first daughter of Lawrence Rayburn and Debbie Harris Sharp, of Beckville, Texas. Both of her parents were also schoolteachers. She grew up during the Great Depression, spending part of her teen years in Austin, where she would return after her graduation from Beckville High School to attend the University of Texas. She completed her bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1950.
After graduation, she began her teaching career at Flatonia High School, in southeast Texas, where she was tapped as a rookie faculty member to be the yearbook sponsor, a role she would subsequently fill in Wolfe City. While in Flatonia, she met her future husband, Reuben, a traveling photographer for Wolfe City’s Henington Studios. They were married in Beckville on June 14, 1952, and lived in Wolfe City for the next sixty years. After two years of continued traveling, making school pictures, Reuben purchased the local Ford dealership, rechristening it Milton Motors, and his bride took a hiatus from her teaching career to help him manage his fledgling business while bearing and raising their two sons.
Mrs. Milton was welcomed by many of Wolfe City’s civic-minded women, the wives and mothers who formed groups like the Modern Study Club, for which Frances took a turn as president during her long membership.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Milton is survived by two sons and a daughter-in-law, San Milton of New York, NY and Lanny and Lauren Milton of Longview, TX. She is also survived by two siblings: brother Thomas Harris Sharp, of Dallas; her younger sister Elizabeth Robinson of Midland, Texas; two granddaughters Kyleen Hjembo and husband Matt of Greenwood Lake, New York, and Alyssa Womack and husband Marcus of Little Elm, Texas; and one great-granddaughter, Graham Annelise Womack of Little Elm, TX. She also leaves behind her sisters-in-law Mary Jeanne (Mrs. Thomas) Sharp of Dallas; Ida Nell (Mrs. S. A.) Sharp of DeBerry; and Evelyn (Mrs. James) Sharp of Carthage, as well as nine nephews, four nieces, and their families.
She was predeceased by brothers L R, Sidney Argus, and James A. Sharp.
The memorial service will be conducted at the First Baptist Church of Wolfe City at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 13, following visitation at R. W. Owens & Son Funeral Home from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 12. Interment will be at Mt Carmel Cemetery, Wolfe City.