Ruby Lee Wharton

​Ruby Lee Wharton, age 94, left this life on January 14, 2018. She was born to Lee Daniel and Letha Mae Daniel on February 2, 1923 in the small, no longer existing, community of Iverson, Texas near the town of Itasca, Texas where she lived, taught, and nursed for most of her life.

She is preceded in death by the father of her three children, George Mendal Wharton.

During WWII, Ruby trained at Baylor University as a nurse until George returned home from the war and they married. 

Ruby Lee Wharton

​At that time, women were not allowed to be in nurses training if they were married, and Ruby withdrew to follow George to the oil fields of Oklahoma and finally to the Western Shores of the US, California with their first-born son in tow.
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Ruby worked as a seamstress and George began driving a truck and by 1959 the couple had three children. Though the marriage ended in 1964, and the two remarried, George and Ruby were reunited in 2011 when she agreed to care for her ex-husband who had broken his hip and suffered from late stage Alzheimer’s. 

Returning home, to Texas, Ruby took a teaching position in Covington, Texas, and then transferred back to the town where her mother and father still lived, Itasca, Texas. She taught English and Remedial Reading there for several years, then returned to school and completed her lifelong dream of becoming an RN. Ruby nursed at Johnson County Hospital in the OB Ward, and subsequently again returned to Itasca as the Charge Nurse and Assistant Director of Nurses in both Itasca and Hillsboro Nursing Homes.

Ruby was a longtime member of the Central Baptist Church in Itasca and moved her letter of membership to the Shiloh Baptist Church to play piano for the small congregation there. Ruby loved to play the piano, and love the classic church hymns. Ruby lived a long and fruitful life, and in doing so found that the majority of her friends and family preceded her in death.

Nonetheless, she loved to travel to Waco to play 42 with her son Don’s family, Scott and Carlee Wilson, Paul and Candice Ellison, along with Don Wharton and his youngest son, Clinton Wharton. The only thing she seemed to like better was a trip to Alvarado, Texas to play Bingo on Fridays. Her daughter Janet, son Art, and Doris (Brandy) Rankin enjoyed their trips with her and were sure to help her watch her bingo cards.

Ruby is also preceded in death by her parents, Lee and Letha Daniel; three brothers, Ralph Eugene Daniel, G. L. Daniel, James Guy Daniel; one sister, Alice Hobbs; one grandchild, Donald Christon Wharton; son-in-law, William Fennell; and the father of her three children, George Mendal Wharton.

She is survived by two sons, Donald Gene Wharton, and Arthur Leroy Wharton; daughter, Janet Lea Fennell; sister, Mary Louise Compton; ten grandchildren, Derik Clinton Wharton, Carlee’ Wilson (Scott), Gabriel Levern Fennell, William Brian Fennell (Stephanie), Stephanie Houston (Tory), Laura Cooper (Chris); and seventeen great grandchildren.
Ruby will be laid to rest next to George, in the Wharton family plot, in the Itasca, Texas Cemetery, on Monday, January 15, 2018 at 3 p.m. Flowers or memorials may be delivered to her residence at 706 East Main Street, Itasca, Texas 76055 or directly to the Itasca Cemetery.