María (Mary) Oralia Flores, beloved sister and aunt who devoted her life to her family and to her beloved animals on her ranch, passed away on Sunday, August 18. She was 91.
A Rosary will be recited at 6 p.m. Sunday, August 25 at Johnson’s Funeral Home. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Monday, August 26, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Mary was born on November 25, 1932, the day after Thanksgiving Day, in Fort Stockton, the eighth of 11 children of Rumalda Montes Flores and Francisco Flores Sr. It was the early years of the Great Depression and her family lived and worked at the Hat A Ranch outside of Fort Stockton. Although they were not wealthy and even though economic times were tough, living on the ranch afforded the family a slightly better life than others around them.
Her father and her older siblings worked on horseback as ranch crews, trapping wild animals, clearing mesquite, cactus and other brush, repairing pipes around water tanks and tending to livestock, including branding cattle, among other tasks. As she grew, Mary mostly helped her mother around the small but tidy home, helping raise her three younger siblings, a vocation that she enjoyed and embraced her entire life.
In the early 1950s, she moved with her parents and other siblings to San Angelo. Many of the family members not only worked jobs in town, but they also oftentimes traveled as itinerant farmers—picking cotton and other crops in the area, among other places, to provide for their sustenance. In 1965, Mary began working in the Housekeeping Department at Shannon West Texas Memorial Hospital, which is now Shannon Medical Center.
In the early 1970s, while still holding her job at Shannon, she and two of her brothers, Eliseo “Chayo” Flores and Richard Flores Sr., seeking to capture the ranch life of their youth that they had enjoyed, purchased a nearly 40-acre ranch about 10 miles east of Ballinger. They built fences and brought in sheep and goats, cattle, horses, chickens and guinea hens, among other animals. They built corrals and other structures for some of the animals, along with a small wood-frame home for overnight stays. They were able to dig a water well that served them for some time, but they mostly had to regularly haul water in 55-gallon drums for the livestock.
Mary never married and never had children, but she was the matriarch of a score of nieces and nephews she helped raise with a smile, a strong voice and a firm, and gentle hand, especially Isabella “Bella” Longoria Flores, a niece she raised, loved and called her own. Mary instilled responsibility in “Bella” and numerous other nieces and nephews who joined her on the weekends at the ranch, ensuring that animals were fed and watered and that other chores were completed before games or free time could begin.
She was kind and generous, loved to laugh, loved music, and was a great hostess at family gatherings, especially Easter Sunday celebrations when dozens of family members gathered at the three-table pavilion at the O.C. Fisher Reservoir where she was among the first on the bur-laden field hiding Easter eggs for the children or the first one at the plate for a family game of softball.
True to her upbringing and dedicated work ethic, Mary never missed a day of work at Shannon Medical Center, retiring with a perfect attendance record from the Environmental Services Department in 2014.
Aunt Mary was greatly loved and will be missed immensely.
She is survived by her brother, Richard Flores Sr. She was preceded in death by her parents; her niece, Isabella “Bella” Longoria Flores; her brothers, Daniel Flores, Isaac Flores, Eliseo “Chayo” Flores, Rosendo Flores, Isabel “Bill” Flores, and Francisco Flores Jr.; her sisters, Octavia Flores Sedeño, Ernestina Flores Sedeño, and Olivia Flores Batla; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Pallbearers will be Weston Batla, James Batla, Dwayne Batla, Daniel Batla, Richard Flores Jr. , and Phillip Flores.
Post a comment to this article here: