Mrs. Sarah Odessa Weaver
WardWilsonViewed: 2278
Posted by: Ward Wilson
Date: May 07 2016 5:08 PM
Ward Wilson Memory Hill Funeral Home Cemetery and Crematory
2414 Hartford Highway
Dothan, Alabama 36305
334-792-4194
Mrs. Sarah Odessa Weaver
On the afternoon of May 5th, 2016, Sarah, known to her family and friends as Odessa, passed away peacefully of natural causes. She was attended by her granddaughter at Wesley Manor Retirement Community. Odessa was 92 years old.
Odessa was born June 26th, 1923 in Houston County, Alabama. She was the first child of Addis and Elma Baxter of Pansey.
Odessa grew up in the back country, learning antiquated skills such as churning butter, making homemade lye soap, smoking hog meat and extracting cane syrup. She attended elementary school in a one room school house with the children of other local share croppers. In the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, the Baxters loaded everything they owned into a Mode T Ford and headed west to California where they heard there was work. After 15 months they returned to Alabama where Odessa graduated from Ashford High.
Odessa met her husband, Donald Weaver, in 1942. Don was a paratrooper on furlough from Fort Benning walking along the road in Eufala on the way to visit his sister near Dothan. Odessa told her uncle to stop the car to “pick up that soldier.” Don was immediately smitten and asked for a date that night. Odessa agreed and promptly stood him up. Somehow Don found her uncle’s house, requested a date a second time, and they were married that Christmas.
For the next 45 years Don and Odessa lived in Illinois and Alabama until Don’s death in 1987. They enjoyed the outdoors – camping, fishing, and gardening. Odessa was a lover of all things Southern: She read Faulkner novels, visited antebellum homes, and perfected cornbread dressing, pecan pie, and a red velvet cake that in her true Southern vernacular would “make your tongue smack your brains out.” For many years she cultivated exquisite azalea bushes, crape myrtles and a dogwood tree.
Odessa was a member of Evangel Assembly of God Church in Dothan and worked part time for the Dothan Police Department. She was a charter member of the Bazemore Mill Pond Swimming Club.
Odessa was preceded in death by her husband, Donald Eugene Weaver and her parents, Addis and Elma Baxter.
Odessa is survived by her brother and sister-in-law Addis Titus and Vermell Baxter, of Appling, Georgia; her son and daughter-in-law Donald Baxter Weaver and Sharon Weaver of Grand Forks, North Dakota; her daughter Dixie Celeste Glover of Dothan; grandchildren Kent Baxter Weaver and his wife, Barbara, of Tampa, Florida; Kimberly Socoski and husband Paul of Grand Forks, North Dakota; LaKeisha Celeste Schrermerhorn and husband Jimmy of Dothan; Amanda Leigh Ready of New York, NY; Gypsy Rain Glover and fiancé Blake Cole of Dothan; nieces Rochelle Daniels and her husband David, and Shannon Wilson and her husband Ronnie; and great grandchildren Brooke, Paul IV, Hailey and Sydney Socoski and Ryker Schermerhorn.
Odessa will be laid to rest next to her husband and parents at Liberty Baptist Church in Pansey at 10 o’clock on Monday morning, May 9th, witnessed by her family at a graveside service.
The family would like to extend a special thanks to Wesley Manor for their care and attention to Odessa during her last years.
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