MINERAL WELLS -- Leila Carol [Elam] Sanders Cleveland, 70, of Mineral Wells and a resident of Mineral Wells Nursing & Rehab, died peacefully at Palo Pinto General Hospital on July 9, 2010.
Memorial service is 2 p.m. Saturday, July 17, at White's Funeral Home, 101 N.E. 4th Ave., in Mineral Wells, officiated by Rev. Bruce Anderson, from Glenn Heights, Texas. Visitation will follow at the home of Susan Tollefson's.
Carol was born Nov. 25, 1939, in Fort Worth to the late Frank Haynes Elam and Nan Oriel Victoria [McGhee] Elam. She married William C. Sanders Sr. on Dec. 30, 1961, and later married Lynn Cleveland. Carol was a devout Baptist who grew up in the Cliff Temple Baptist Church in the Dallas Oak Cliff area. She graduated in 1958 from Sunset High School in Dallas and earned a Bachelor of Music degree with a concentration in flute and piano on Aug. 19, 1962, from North Texas State University in Denton, Texas. She also attended East Texas Baptist College in Commerce, Texas. She served as president of the Baptist Student Union at NTSU.
She was a professional flautist, playing for many private parties and churches in the Dallas area. Carol served as the pianist in the First Baptist Church of Sanger, Texas; Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas; and the First Baptist Church in Earlimart, Calif. She also was the pianist at Bishop Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas during the 1980s with Rev. Bruce Anderson as the pastor.
Carol's professional life was teaching choral music in the public schools in Earlimart Elementary School in Earlimart, Calif., and Edgewood Elementary School in San Antonio. She also enjoyed playing the piano for her nursing home friends. Carol glorified the Lord with her talent in music, sewing and art projects and writing.
Carol is survived by her daughters, Susan [Sanders] Tollefson and husband, Steven Tollefson, of Mineral Wells, and, Heather [Cleveland] Barrick, of Garland, Texas; a son, William Charles Sanders Jr. of Houston; a sister, Nan Alice [Elam] Hamby, of San Antonio; a brother, Frank Elam, of Clear Lake, Texas; grandchildren, Lauren Tollefson Radford and husband, Terrell, of St. Johns, Fla., Zachary
Austin and Shelby Tollefson, of Mineral Wells, William Turner Sanders, of Richmond, Texas, Mason Hinson, of Kingsland, Texas, snf Ashley and Summer Barrick, of Texarkana, Ark; a great-grandson, Tripp Wyatt Radford, of St. Johns, Fla.; and several nieces and nephews and cousins.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Frank Haynes Elam and Nan Alice Oriel (McGhee) Elam; and her late husband, Lynn Cleveland.
White's Funeral Home
Mineral Wells, 940-325-3311 |
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