Pursley, Mary Naoma Gallaway 


Graveside services for Mary Naoma Gallaway Pursley, 90, will be held 10 
a.m. Friday, August 18, 2006, at Lakeview Memorial Gardens, with the Rev. 
Roger Gage officiating. Interment will be under the direction of Lakeview 
Funeral Home. She died Monday, August 14, 2006, at a hospital following a 
brief illness. Naoma Pursley was born July 23, 1916, in Geronimo, Oklahoma, 
and she was raised in Van Buren, Arkansas. She graduated from Tyler 
Commercial College. On September 19, 1936, she married W. Lee Pursley, and 
they celebrated 60 years of marriage before his death in December 1996. 
Moving from Tyler to Odessa, where they lived for 13 years, the Pursleys 
raised a son and twin daughters. As a homemaker, Mrs. Pursley enjoyed 
cooking, gardening, sewing, and reading. She was a member of PEO in Odessa. 
In 1959, the Pursleys moved back to East Texas to Longview. A devout 
Christian, Mrs. Pursley was a former Sunday school teacher and member of 
the First Baptist Church in Odessa, Greggton, and Spring Hill, and 
currently a member of the Clarksville City Baptist Church. She was 
preceded in death by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Randolph Gallaway; a 
grandson, Michael Randolph Climer; brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. 
Edwin Gallaway; sister-in-law, Mary Rasberry; and two sons-in-law, W. Roy 
Climer and Bill Miller. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, 
Lee Wain and Linda Pursley; twin daughters, Janet Davis and Janice Miller, 
all of Longview; grandsons, Stephen Pursley of Fort Collins, Colorado, and 
Eric Climer of Longview; step-grandsons and their spouses, Mark and Karen 
Miller, and Randall and Sandra Miller of Longview; sisters-in-law, Roberta 
Pursley and Marie Wheeley of Longview, and Norma Puckett of Conroe; 
maternal nieces, Edwina Gallaway Hoffman and Carol Kay Gallaway Wadzek of 
Odessa; and numerous paternal nieces and nephews. Special thanks to the 
staff of Summer Meadows during Mrs. Pursley's long-term residency and to 
the attending doctors and caring nursing staff at Good Shepherd Medical 
Center during her recent hospitalization. In lieu of flowers, the family 
requests memorial donations be made to the Clarksville City Baptist Church, 
P.O. Box 568, White Oak, TX 75693; or a charity of your choice. The family 
will receive friends 6-8 p.m. Thursday evening, August 17, 2006, at the 
funeral home.

Published in the Longview News-Journal from 8/16/2006 - 8/17/2006.