Mary Jeanette Wilkirson Stokes Boswell ("Netta") died peacefully on June 12, 2018. She was born May 25, 1922, in Waxahachie, Texas to May Files and Cad T. Wilkirson. She grew up in Grandview, Texas, where she graduated as the high school valedictorian. She attended Baylor University and graduated from the University of Texas, where she pledged Delta Delta Delta sorority and earned a degree in Sociology.
She worked for one year as a social worker in Dallas, Texas before marrying Elmer Malcolm Stokes, MD in 1944. The couple moved to Tulsa in 1945, where Malcolm set up his ObGyn medical practice. Netta was active in Southminster Presbyterian Church and the Junior League of Tulsa, as well as garden, bridge, and sewing clubs.
Their only child, Jeanette, was born in 1951, which led Netta into PTA activities. She and Malcolm divorced in 1964. In 1966, she married Vol L. Boswell and became the stepmother of Bonnie Ann, whom she helped to raise.
She traveled with Malcolm to Britain, Europe, and the Far East, and with Vol, she visited many beaches in the US and made a trip around the world.
Though she never thought of herself as athletic, she learned to swim when her daughter did and learned to drive a ski boat so Vol could waterski.
A warm, kind, quiet person with a smile that lit up her whole face, Netta could make those around her feel welcome and cared for. With an active mind to the end, her mornings often included a crossword puzzle and her evenings a good book.
Descended from Scots-Irish people and English people who migrated to Texas a hundred and fifty years ago, she lived to be the oldest person in her family tree.
Netta is preceded in death by brothers Pat Temple Wilkirson and Oscar Lee Wilkirson, by her loving husband of 50 years Vol, and by her stepdaughter Bonnie Boswell Williams. She is survived by daughter Jeanette Stokes (husband Dwight Honeycutt) and by Bonnie's husband Mike Gene Williams and their daughter Lily Ann Williams.
Memorial gifts may be made to 1) The Resource Center For Women and Ministry in the South, 1202 Watts St., Durham, NC 27701, 2) The Tulsa Botanical Garden, 3900 Tulsa Botanic Dr., Tulsa, OK 74127, or 3) A charity of your choice.
Funeral services will be 2:00 PM Saturday, June 16, 2018, at Memorial Park Cemetery Chapel, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Arrangements by Moore Southlawn 918-663-2233 share memories at www.moorefuneral.com