Celebration of a Well-Lived Life

In broken down shoes. Wearing flour sack dresses. Made fun of by kids in her classes. Just an ole country girl in broken down shoes.

But that ole country girl was a beauty, and some said she could run faster than future pro-football player Bill Howton, but she married a flyboy from Claytonville, barely 18, and by 24, had a brood of four kids in tow. She achieved her highest ambitions by being a farmer’s wife and a mother.

But Wanda Bass didn’t just mother her own kids. Beginning with Bev Scherck Hadley, in 1967, she and Frank Bass served as surrogate parents for literally dozens of Wayland kids, a few young lawyers, preachers, young school teachers, more than a few Democrats and perhaps a discrete Republican or two. Her home was warm, welcoming and always loving. She was a teacher’s aide at Thunderbird and Lakeside for many years, a stalwart for newborns at First Baptist Plainview, and over the years vacuumed floors and cleaned houses for some of Plainview’s leading and lesser families.

The term “a servant’s heart” is often used descriptively, but rarely more accurately. She saw no color, race, age or social distinctions, but she knew and distributed freely a precious commodity…love.

But she was no saint, though some will disagree. But those who knew her well knew her humor, temper, and tongue…. Most of her children were nine before they understood their middle names were not “You Little Shit”.

So too soon we say goodbye to truly one of a kind. Wanda Parsons Bass. Born July 13, 1931, to Thrane and Imogene Parsons, who farmed near the old Running Water Draw School. She died November 1, 2017. She married Frank Bass August 8, 1948, who went ahead to prepare a place for her in April of this year. Parents to three boys, Bob and Robin Bass of Austin; Mark and Lynn Bass of Irving, Jon and Cheryl Bass of Quarterway, and a daughter, Melinda and John Lin’s-Morstadt of Marysville, WA. They were blessed with 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, and a host of cousins, nieces, nephews, and loving friends from coast to coast as a result of Frank’s years driving Wayland activities buses. She was known as an inter-family disciplinarian, spanking indiscriminately those kids who needed one while in her presence, and every such swat was deserved and apparently contributed to an entire generation of model citizens.

The family suggests memorial donations to the Frank and Wanda Endowment Scholarship at Wayland University, Office of Advancement, 1900 W. 7th St., Plainview, Texas 79072 Plainview, Texas.

The family will host a viewing Sunday, November 5, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.at Kornerstone Funeral Directors. Funeral service will be held at First Baptist Church, Plainview on Monday, November 6, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. Burial will follow in the Plainview Cemetery under the care of Kornerstone Funeral Directors of Plainview.

Appreciation to the loving staff at Westridge Manor for their care of our parents the past year.