Nora Lucille "Luci" Nall (Plainview)

Luci Nall, 94, of Plainview, passed away on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 in Olton. Graveside service will be held at 10:00 A.M., Saturday at Plainview Memorial Park with Dr. Tim Marrow, of First Baptist Church, officiating. Arrangements are under the care of Kornerstone Funeral Directors of Plainview. Luci Nall was born in Hamlin, Texas on September 5, 1918 to Robert Emmett Walker and Mary Etta Greenway Walker. She was the first of twin girls but her sister died one month after their birth. She had three older brothers and three younger sisters, including another set of twins, by the time the family moved to their new farm in Hart Texas around 1923. This was also the year her grandfather (Mary Etta’s father), a Civil War veteran from North Carolina, passed away in Hamlin. It is amazing to realize that Luci had memories of someone who fought in the Civil War. Though farm life in Hart was hard they never wanted for food. You did have to milk the cows, butcher animals for meat and tend garden for vegetables. Apparently this was all healthy activity because Luci’s mother lived to over 100 years of age and almost all of Luci’s siblings lived into their nineties. Luci remembered her mother cooking three meals a day and also, at wheat harvest time especially, making meals to take to a dozen hands in the fields. Luci had athletic tendencies all her life. Among her favorite stories of Hart was walking on stilts her dad made her to move their cattle from a small playa lake pasture up to the barn a quarter mile away. She claimed she went down and back and never fell once! Luci also remembers using a pole, and a running start, to vault over the corral fences. This inability to sit still translated later in life into a love of golf, dancing, and constant motion with cleaning and gardening and any activity outdoors. The only time she would be still for long was when she and Hall were fishing. She could keep Hall busy just taking fish off her line. Luci and her family also survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and later moved into Plainview, though they still farmed. But Luci had fond memories of growing up “in the country”. After graduating high school in 1936 and some business college Luci saw a chance to see more than Plainview Texas when World War Two arrived. She took a civilian secretary job at Biggs Field Army Base in El Paso in 1942-43. During these years she remembers seeing Clark Gable when he visited their office, though she was too shy to look him in the eye as he walked right by her desk. She always wished she had done that differently! She soon decided to join the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) a new division of the US Navy. This took her to Hunter College in the Bronx, New York City, for training, then to Iowa for more, and finally to Oakland California where she worked as secretary to the youngest Commander in the US Navy at the naval base there. Luci swore she would never move back to Plainview. But love said otherwise when she ran into Hall Nall in El Paso at an Army USO dance. She had known him before he joined the Army but they had never dated. They conducted a mostly long distance romance while Hall served in India for three years as an Army hospital administrator at the hospital a mile and a half down the road from the Taj Mahal in Agra India. Finally in July 1945 they were married and honeymooned in Ruidoso and Santa Fe New Mexico. They were there when the first atomic bomb was exploded on the other side of the mountains, but for some reason they never noticed.... Hall started a Dodge, Chrysler, Desoto dealership in Plainview with Leighton Maggard that year and Luci was back in Plainview, happily so. They raised two happy boys, though she lost two babies shortly after their births in the years between the boys, and eventually built a house “out in the country” a mile and a half west of Plainview. At first Luci felt isolated and wondered why she agreed to move out of town with no neighbors near to visit. She soon grew to love the open country and serenity. It was a home full of friends, family get-togethers and reunions, and holiday gatherings. Here they grew a garden, grapes (Hall actually made a wine press and produced a few good years vintage), and pecan trees which they continued to harvest until their last few years. They both loved fishing and took every opportunity to get on the water. Luci often ended up with the biggest fish of the day. They took their fifth wheel trailer and sometimes a fishing boat to both ends of the country and Alaska, often with the Good Sam club, and never tired seeing the countryside along the way. Hall loved singing so much that Luci did too and joined him in the Millennium Singers. Hall led the group for many years in visits to senior citizen centers and care centers and music jamborees all around the Plainview area. Though Luci’s memory faded in the last few years, she remained a sweet natured lady, still a “redhead” in spirit, and always enjoyed a good joke if told right. She was full of life and we will miss her, but are so happy she is dancing again. She has one son still living, Lance Nall (and wife Carol Nall) of Buda Texas, and two sisters, Winnie Moore of Lubbock, and Helen Walker who is a resident of Runningwater Draw Care Center where Luci lived the last two years of her life. Luci was pre-deceased by her husband Hall E. Nall in 2007 and her oldest son Charles E. Nall in 2003. We wish to thank the dedicated care givers at Runningwater Draw who make such a wonderful difference in the lives of families caring for aged loved ones. Also our heartfelt thanks go to Luci’s, and Hall’s, earlier caregivers Maria Zamora, Veronica Rivera, Terri Villarreal, Amanda Rogers, and Annie Landeros.