Lois Jean Sellers Keen

Lois Jean Sellers Keen, 75, passed from this life Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004. She died peacefully in Dallas, with the loving support of her family.

Funeral: 11 a.m. Friday at Woodlawn Funeral Home, 1101 Antoine Drive, Houston.

Pallbearers for the service will be brothers, Don and William Sellers; son, Thomas H. Keen; son-in-law, William R. McFarland; grandson, Joel McFarland; and grandson-in-law, Drexell Owusu.

Memorials: In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Alzheimer's Association, Capital of Texas Chapter, 3420 Executive Center Dr., Ste. 301, Austin, Texas 78731.

Lois was born Aug. 7, 1928, in Houston to Adrian and Marjorie Sellers. She was a graduate of Lamar High School in Houston, and attended Rice University, where she was a member of the Sara Lane Literary Society. She married Thomas Harper Keen on Dec. 27, 1947. To this union, three children, Adrienne, Elise and Tom, were born. Lois and her family spent several years in El Paso where she was a member of the Junior League, and assisted her husband in the management of their firm, the B&M Machinery Company. Lois was known for her culinary skills and her quick wit and uncanny ability to be the supreme hostess. Upon her husband's death, she and her three children moved to Dallas, where she worked for RCA Corporation, Lone Star Steel Company and J Tubular Goods. Lois was a type-A, get-it-done person. Having been widowed before age 40, she raised three children alone.

She was an executive secretary at RCA Corporation, and rose from an administrative assistant to an inside sales position at Lone Star Steel Company, a feat unheard of in the early 1970s in Dallas.

Lois was fiercely proud of her children and grandchildren and won many a face-off in bragging contests with other grandparents. An excellent cook, Lois hosted years and years of family Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations at her home in Dallas. She

loved making Christmas goodies like snickerdoodles, chocolate crinkle cookies, and fudge with her grandchildren before consuming mass quantities herself.

A woman with a marvelous sense of humor, Lois loved to hear, tell, and act out jokes. She brought love and joy to her family and friends with whom her gifts will live on.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Thomas H. Keen; her parents, Adrian and Marjorie Sellers; and grandson, Thomas Harper Keen.

As Namaw would have said, "This world and then the fireworks!"

Survivors: Children, Adrienne McFarland and husband, Bill, of Austin, Elise Anderson and husband, Michael, of Canyon Country, Calif., and Tom Keen and wife, Brenda, of Plano; brothers, Don Sellers and wife, Jane, and William Sellers, all of Houston; and grandchildren, Joel Thomas McFarland, Joanna Leigh Owusu and husband, Drexell, Danielle Elizabeth Keen, Rachel Diane Keen, Philip Harper Anderson, Tate Hudson Keen and Joseph Michael Anderson.