Anna Mae Lorene Watts

Eulogy for Anna Mae Lorene McLane Watts
Today, we gather as a family-children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and loved ones-to honor the life of our mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, and the heart of our family, Anna Mae Lorene McLane Watts.
To us, she wasn't just a name in an obituary. She was the woman who held our hands when we were scared, who worked tirelessly to give us a better life, who showed us what strength looks like, and who loved us with a depth that shaped every generation that came after her.
Anna Mae was born on December 23, 1936, in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, to Albert and Essie McLane. She grew up in a family full of siblings-Leon, Glen, Viola, Carl, and her surviving brother Billy-each of them woven into the story of who she became. She carried the lessons of her childhood with her: resilience, loyalty, and the belief that family is everything.
As a young single mother, she faced challenges that would have broken many people. But not her. She worked in bars to pay her way through nursing school, determined to build a life for her children. That determination became the foundation of her long and meaningful nursing career. She cared for patients at Lovelace Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital in New Mexico, Butterworth Hospital in Michigan, and Comanche County Memorial Hospital in Oklahoma. Her hands healed, her voice comforted, and her presence brought peace to countless people. Nursing wasn't just her job-it was her calling.
But to us, her family, her greatest calling was motherhood.
She raised six children with her first husband, Bobby D. Dillion Cooper-Bobby, Peggy, Donald, Marianne, Patrick, and Michael. She loved each of them fiercely, and she carried the memories of Bobby and Peggy, who preceded her in death, close to her heart every day.
Later, when she married Kenneth D. Watts, she opened her heart even wider, adopting his three children-James, Edna, and John-and loving them as her own. That was who she was: someone whose love expanded, never diminished.
Her family grew across generations, and she cherished every single one of us. She celebrated our births, our milestones, our victories, and even our mistakes. She held us when we cried, laughed with us until we couldn't breathe, and taught us what it means to be strong, kind, and honest.
She loved traveling-especially those summer road trips with her grandchildren. Those trips weren't just vacations; they were adventures filled with stories, laughter, and memories we still talk about today. She loved dancing too-moving with a joy that lit up every room she entered. Even in her later years, you could still see that spark in her eyes whenever music played.
She wasn't perfect-none of us are-but she was ours. And she gave us everything she had.
We will remember her in the small things: the way she smiled when she saw her grandbabies, the way she told stories from her nursing days, the way she danced in the kitchen, the way she made every one of us feel like we mattered.
We will remember her in the big things too: her strength, her sacrifices, her courage, and the legacy she leaves behind in each of us.
Today, we say goodbye-not forever, but until we meet again. We take comfort in knowing she has been lovingly welcomed into the Family's Heavenly Home, reunited with her parents, her siblings, her children Bobby and Peggy, her granddaughter Adriana, and all the loved ones who went before her.
Anna Mae, Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma-thank you. Thank you for your love, your strength, your laughter, your lessons, and your life. We are who we are because of you.
You will live on in our stories, in our hearts, and in every generation that follows.
Forever loved.
Forever remembered.
Forever in our hearts.