Juana Simonton

Juana Gayle Crouch Simonton (known to most as Gayle) passed away at the age of 82 after a short illness on Sunday, July 27, 2025, during an afternoon nap while at her residential assisted living facility. She was pain-free and lived a great life up until the end.

Gayle was born in Ferriday, Louisiana on May 24, 1943, to her parents Doris Juanita Tiffee Crouch and Amos Walter Crouch and her big sister Amy Louise Crouch. She would later welcome three additional siblings into the family-Roddie Amos, who was her best buddy growing up; Cheryl Lea, who would become one of her closest confidants; and Tommy Lewis, the baby brother she adored. Her grandparents, in particular her Grandpa Louis and Granny Belle, were thrilled to take care of Gayle and her brothers and sisters, and Doris's sisters Aunt Charlie Dean and Aunt Vera would become second mothers to them.

Like her parents and the rest of her family, Gayle was incredibly smart. She was always sore that somehow she wound up as Salutatorian instead of Valedictorian of her high school class. Although she loved academics-particularly math and science-she also had a lot of fun growing up with her siblings, cousins, and friends, including Emmilee Gordon, Diane and Gail Crouch, and Susan Randall. Gayle also loved competing on sports teams, particularly in basketball and softball. Even though these things kept her busy, she still carved out time to help her parents with their primary occupation-farming (she could drive a tractor and combine as good as anyone)-and learned from her mother how to grow a thriving vegetable garden, a hobby she kept up until just a few years ago.

Remarkable for a young woman from rural Louisiana at the time, after graduating from high school, Gayle set off for college at Northeast Louisiana State University (now University of Louisiana-Monroe), where she roomed with her friend Linda Steele. There Gayle again balanced having a great time with her friends (and boyfriends), going home to visit her family and help with farming, and excelling in her classes, eventually graduating with degrees in math and chemistry.

After graduating, Gayle set off for the exotic destination of Houston, Texas, where she got a job with NASA (her brother Roddie also worked there during some of the same time). While at NASA, she, among other things, authored a manual on rocket trajectories-something her daughter Leigha only figured out when Leigha found the manual while going through books in a bookcase in their house one day.

The most significant thing to happen to Gayle during her time in Houston was not her NASA experience, but a random encounter with her next-door apartment neighbor-a young man named Clyde Reneer Simonton, who went by the nickname "Sam." Gayle and Sam began talking and, within a few months, fell in love and decided to get married. On May 25, 1968, they got married in the Eva Church of God in Monterey, Louisiana. Gayle wore a dress her mother made. The pair honeymooned in Mexico and returned to make their home in Houston.

Not long after, the space race that defined NASA in the 1960s ended and NASA downsized, laying off Gayle. After a period of mourning, Gayle reinvented herself as a high school math and science teacher, and she and Sam moved to Monterey in the hopes of raising a family there. Sam's parents eventually moved to Monterey to be close to their only son, and Gayle's family welcomed them into theirs-in fact, they are all buried in the same family cemetery today, where Gayle will also be buried.

Eventually, on August 23, 1976, Gayle and Sam welcomed their only child, Leigha Amy Simonton. Gayle named Leigha after her two sisters, Amy Lou (who had sadly passed away years before) and Cheryl Lea. Gayle was stunned and thrilled when Leigha entered the world with red hair because the hair color ran in their family but had skipped Gayle's generation. In the first years of Leigha's life, Gayle spent seemingly every spare dollar that Gayle and Sam made buying pageant-style dresses for Leigha, putting her hair in ringlets and attaching bows to every open surface of her scalp, and taking her for professional photos-even though Gayle refused to enter Leigha into any real pageants. (Gayle actually made Leigha enter a school pageant in the 8th grade and bought a peach-colored pageant dress for her-and, much to Gayle's delight, Leigha won.)

Four years after Leigha's birth, Gayle's sister Cheryl had her daughter Alicia Danielle Wall (now Henness), who became Gayle's favorite (and only) niece. Gayle, Cheryl, Leigha, and Alicia spent a lot of time together as Leigha and Alicia grew up.

Gayle continued teaching at Monterey High School throughout Leigha's kindergarten year, and Leigha loved having her mom at the same school campus. She would excitedly visit Gayle's classroom each day, and Gayle's students loved seeing little Leigha. Gayle enjoyed sponsoring the school's Beta Club. She became close with several of her students, whom she kept up with well into their adulthood. She also taught with one of her best friends, Sandy Lanehart.

After Leigha's kindergarten year, Gayle decided she wanted a change and got a job working at a technical college three hours away in Baton Rouge. She worked there during the week and came home on weekends. After a few years, she got a different technical job at Contel Communications in Dallas, Texas, and moved there. It was while working in the IT department at Contel (which became GTE) that she met one of her lifelong best friends, Gwen Wilson, who was by her side until Gayle's passing.

Gayle held a series of jobs in the telecommunications industry and, at one point, also founded a medical transcription company, which she managed for a few years. Her last job was working at Siemens in Irving, Texas, where she taught classes comprised of professionals who were sent by their companies to learn how to program the systems that operated multi-system phone lines. This job combined Gayle's love of teaching with her gift for understanding science/computer science and technology.

Leigha and Sam eventually joined Gayle in Dallas, and Leigha attended high school in the Richardson Independent School District. (Cheryl and Alicia also moved to Glen Rose, Texas during this time, and Gayle loved having her sister and niece only a few hours away.)

Although Gayle and Sam eventually divorced, they remained good friends until his passing in 2018. After Sam had to quit driving because of his age, Gayle would help Leigha shuttle him to his doctor's appointments, spend time with their grandkids, and go to restaurants to eat seafood or other favorite foods together.

After Leigha graduated college, she married David Lawrence Horan (Dave), whom Leigha liked to joke took Leigha's title as Gayle's favorite child. Leigha and Dave both became lawyers.

and moved back to Dallas to start their careers. Leigha and Dave had three kids, who were the real loves of Gayle's life: Ainsley Siobhan (born in 2004), Leighton Alexandra (born in 2008), and Thomas Patrick (born in 2011). Gayle's favorite role in life was as their grandmother, and she was so happy that Leigha and Dave lived close by so that she could see the grandkids often, baby sit regularly, and have them stay over with her. She would make their favorite foods, allow them to watch their favorite shows, and buy their favorite toys for them to play with at her house.

Gayle particularly liked taking the grandkids to her house in Monterey, which she inherited from her Aunt Charley Dean. She wanted them to know the town where she and, later, Leigha had grown up.

Aside from doting on her grandkids, Gayle loved being outdoors and doing home-improvement projects. She walked miles in her neighborhood each morning until a few years ago, and every day she sat in the swing in her front yard and talked with her neighbors. Until well into her 70s, Gayle enjoyed mowing her yard, planting her garden in the huge side yard beside her house, and doing all manner of projects, including putting new shingles on the roofs of two houses, building her backyard fence, putting new flooring in her house, stripping popcorn off her ceilings, painting walls, and installing wallpaper. She also loved rebuilding and upholstering furniture, most of which she had found on the side of the road. (Gayle also made Leigha participate in these endeavors, which Leigha found that she did not love quite as much as her mother did.)

Though mostly a healthy person, Gayle had four main physical challenges in her life. First, as a young adult, she had severe back issues, necessitating major back surgery. She worked hard to get back to an active lifestyle after recovering from this.

Much later, when she turned 70 years old, Gayle received a diagnosis of Stage III small-cell lung cancer. Small-cell lung cancer is an especially severe type of lung cancer that, at the time of her diagnosis, few people survived. Leigha immediately got Gayle into treatment at UT Southwestern Hospital in Dallas, and, after four grueling rounds of chemotherapy and chest and brain radiation, Gayle achieved complete remission. The cancer never returned, and Gayle lived 12 more years after her treatment. Gayle's oncologist was stunned, as he had never seen someone completely recover from that stage and type of cancer. During her treatment, Gayle moved in with Leigha and her family so Leigha could take care of her, and Gayle got to spend a lot of time with her grandkids for the year-and-a-half she stayed there.

A few years after that, Gayle needed hip-replacement surgery due to a congenital abnormality. She soldiered through the operation and recovery with her usual determination. Her friends Gwen Wilson and Toni Gordon (Emmilee's daughter) helped her immensely during this period.

Finally, Gayle battled a life-threatening case of pneumonia a year and a half ago. Fiercely independent, she had always refused Leigha's request for her to move into an assisted-living facility even when she became weaker with age, and her loving neighbors, including her longtime next-door neighbor Charmaine Seracuse, did an incredible service for her in the past several years, checking on her, bringing her food, and mowing her yard. After the pneumonia, Leigha finally convinced Gayle that she was too weak to move back into her house. Leigha found a residential assisted-living home a couple of miles from Gayle's house (and three miles from Leigha's) and moved Gayle into it. Initially resistant to the change, Gayle came to love staying there, and the women who took care of her (including Killo, Phyllis, Kudzai, and Cathy) loved her, too. Killo, the home's owner, said that Gayle was the best PR person she had-if a family wanted a tour of the home, Killo would call to see if Gayle was awake and sitting in the living room, because, if she was, she would always brag about how wonderful her caregivers were.

It was very fitting that Gayle passed away during an afternoon nap at this home, filled with caregivers who loved her.

Gayle is survived by Leigha and her family; her brothers Roddie and Tommy; her niece Alicia, Alicia's husband Chuck, and their daughter Hailey; and Gayle's friends who were like her family, including her best friend Gwen and neighbor Charmaine.

Gayle has now reunited in Heaven with scores of loved ones who passed before her, including her parents and grandparents, her two sisters Cheryl and Amy Lou, her Aunts Charley Dean and Vera and their husbands, Sam and his parents, and close friends including Susan and Emmilee.

Consistent with Gayle's wishes, Leigha has planned two services:

The first will take place on Saturday, August 16, 2025, at 10:30am at Wildwood Chapel in the Restland Cemetery, 13005 Greenville Ave., Dallas, Texas 75243. A short reception will follow after the service. (Please note that Wildwood Chapel is in the middle of the cemetery grounds, not in the main Restland building.)

The second will take place on Saturday, August 30, 2025, at 10am at the Eva Church of God, 255 LA-908, Monterey, Louisiana 71354. Gayle will be buried in her family's cemetery, Alton Cemetery, immediately after this service.

In lieu of flowers, Leigha asks that you donate in Gayle's memory to the charity Save the Children, which was the type of charity Gayle loved to support.