Jenny Lou Spurlock

May 29, 1931-December 19, 2025

Jenny Lou Spurlock was born in Cawood, Kentucky on May 29, 1931 to DeWitt Talmadge and Liza Pace Spurlock. She is survived by numerous nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews and their children. She was preceded in death by both parents, four sisters: Pauline Spurlock Broyles and Frances, Betty Jo and Peggy Joyce who both died in childhood, and three brothers: Charles Kenneth, Clarence Hart and Ralph Dean Spurlock.

Jenny Lou was a child of the mountains and Cawood, the community where her family had lived for generations. Life centered around home, family, nature, the Cawood Presbyterian Church, school, the store and the Post Office, conversation and music. Everyone worked hard and enjoyed leisure time. They used what they had. Life had a rhythm and Jenny Lou got with it. She romped with her cousins at Grandma Pace’s home on the Martin’s Fork River. They washed dishes, brought in wood or coal for the stoves and did whatever Grandma or Aunt Jennie asked. Their reward was to listen to a program or two on Aunt Jennie’s battery-powered radio. She even shaved Uncle Homer at his house with a straight-edged razor when he told her to try it. Anything went at his and Vernie’s place.

She was at home everywhere and learned quickly, especially with her brother Kenneth who could use

anything to make something out of nothing. Their mantra was “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” Curious, eager and nimble, she refinished furniture including the bedroom suite she bought with earned money. She crocheted and knitted tams and a handsome dress for a niece’s wedding, learned to use her computer under the name “Spurly Lou,” and late in life became a very good cook who sent pound cakes to those she loved.

Jenny Lou graduated from Hall High School, Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky and the Appalachian Regional Hospital School of Nursing in Harlan. She taught physical education at Hall High until being recruited as the Activities Director at the Appalachian Hospital School of Nursing. By the time the School of Nursing closed, Jenny Lou had completed requirements and was certified as a Registered Nurse. She loved creating opportunities for students living away from home for the first time and kept in touch with some of them for years. She was a compassionate, meticulous Registered Nurse in the Hospital. After retiring, she delighted in teaching nursing courses to adults at the Harlan Joint Vocational School.

When she worked full-time, there was less time to work at the home she shared with her mother, “Mommee” after her parents separated. Mommee kept house, cooked and gardened. Jenny Lou mowed and tackled jobs at their house and at Aunt Jennie’s. She often said, “Mommee cooked my bacon and eggs ‘til I was 65 years old.” Together, they made their yard a show place and the front porch was the place to be in warm weather.

Jenny Lou loved her nieces and nephews. She spent time with them, sometimes treating them to frozen custard, a new treat in the 1950s. Often the caring disciplinarian, each of them has special memories of time with her.

Music was essential to her life. In the 1950s she had a 45-rpm record player. Later she had tape recorders and a Bose compact disc system. Another luxury was annual vacations at the beach in Daytona.

In 1952, Pauline and Henry and Joan Carol, Kenny and Paula moved a world away to Odessa, Texas, where Henry found work as a machinist. Within five years Jenny Lou and Mommee began driving to Texas for Christmas. What adventure it was! Once in bad weather she had to stop and knock snow off the tires to keep going. They always made it. On their way to Odessa before the interstate highways, she drove through Texarkana and passed the little town of Hooks, Texas on Hwy. 82.

An energetic gregarious woman, Jenny Lou devoted untold hours soliciting support to bringing safe, public drinking water to the Cawood community. She cleared and beautified both sides of Hwy. 421 in front of her home. For the Christmas season she decorated a tree in her front yard, visible and heartwarming to passersby. Her daily trips to the Post Office for the mail and neighborhood café for coffee were times to share news, tell tales and crack jokes with the regulars and anyone who happened by.

She devoted herself to being the special Registered Nurse for Mommee for five years before her death in 2002 and planned a delightful 100-year birthday party for her in 2001. She remained in her home for four more years, continuing routines of a lifetime. However, her community had changed over the years; as she said, “Cawood left me.” Always a planner, she organized a move to Texas to be close to Pauline who had moved eastward to New Boston in 2003 and to her niece, now Paula Johnson, her husband Jesse and their children, Damon and Jessica.

In December, 2006, with help of nephews and nieces at both ends she moved westward to New Boston, Texas into a home on property adjoining the Johnsons. Jenny Lou immediately joined the welcoming First Presbyterian Church in Hooks, which was so much like her church in Cawood. A faithful member, she looked forward to the weekly bulletin. She became best friends with her neighbors, Jean Cannon and her mother, Irene Campbell, and Stacie Johnson’s parents, Herman and Mary Threlkeld. Now a Texan, she read Texas Monthly and her great nieces renamed her “GiGi.” There was always something happening with Paula around, especially after Paula gave her a little white terrier she named “Tebow” after the football player. She welcomed visitors and created an inviting homeplace for her expanded family. Her life hummed along until 2016 when Paula was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. She lived six months in the Dallas home and loving care of Kenny and Della and Jenny Lou.

Damon stepped up “to do what Mom always did” to help Jenny Lou and so did her extended Texas family. Damon kept her car running and handled cell phone and other technological problems. Kenny was in and out often and Joan Carol called almost every day. Life was fine until she fell and broke a leg edging with her weed eater. She recovered and kept going at a slower pace. She fell again breaking a hip and spent a month recovering in a nursing home, where she worked diligently at rehabilitation. She returned home; things slowed dramatically, but she still walked to her mailbox and buried her food scraps. With her list, Herman and Mary bought and stored her groceries. Herman bound her wounds; Mary trimmed her hair and nails; they spent time talking with her. As a self-sufficient person who rarely asked for help, their generous help from the heart was an easy gift for Jenny Lou to accept. She kept her routine inside the house, washing her clothes, changing her bed and heating meals, but everything wore her out.

A third fall at home resulted in a blow to her head, many cuts and bruises, and cracked ribs. Her condition was critical, but she was determined to go home and tried hard to make it so. She was in the hospital and a nursing home; released to hospice care, she slipped from us and the loving care of Della and Kenny, Damon and Stacie and Herman and Mary at home on December 19, 2025.

There was never a Jenny Lou Spurlock before and there never will be another like her.

Graveside Services will be held on Monday, December 22, 2025, at 10:00 AM at Read Hill Cemetery – New Boston, Texas with Bro. Steve Minter officiating. Interment will be in under the direction of Bates-Rolf Funeral Home – New Boston, Texas.

In lieu of flowers, the family prefers memorial donations be made to First Presbyterian Church - Hooks, Texas (304 Main St - Hooks, TX 75561) or to the Pine Mountain Settlement School - Bledsoe, Kentucky (36 Highway 510 - Bledsoe, KY 40810).