Eva Womble

Eva (pronounced Evie) Ellen Daniell Womble was born at home outside Andice, TX on June 24, 1929, to John Daniell and Etta Belle Booth, the youngest of 8 children. Her entry into the world came at a tough time because a short while later that year the stock market crashed, and her family lost their farm in the Great Depression. Eva said they were so poor that her childhood made Little House on the Prairie look like a fairy tale. In their modest home, at night Eva’s brother, Otis, taught her how to count by counting the stars through the gaps in their family’s ceiling. She took those evening math lessons to heart and eventually graduated at the top of her class from Florence High School at the age of 15.

Eva was terrified of giving a speech, so one day when she was working her student job in the office, she changed her own grades to make herself #2 instead of #1 in her graduating class. She’d never attended a graduation and didn’t know that the salutatorian also gives a speech, so that plan didn’t work out the way she expected. Her parents felt like that was enough school for a girl, so Eva went to work at the Round Rock telephone company where, in the era of party lines, she learned a great deal about people’s lives.

A few years later Eva met a mechanic hunting buddy of her brother-in-law who was home from WWII. She thought he was an old man but, over time, fell for him. Not wanting to be anywhere close to a farm, she said, “Yes,” when the mechanic, Samuel Allen Womble, asked her to marry. Much to her surprise, shortly after their wedding they moved to the RGV in the back of a friend’s pickup truck, to start a family farm “without two nickels to rub together.” A short time after coming to the valley they moved to Rio Farms where they got their start in farming and made lifelong friends. Their union was blessed with three sons, Sam, Dan, and David, and their favorite daughter, Suzanne. Eva and SA were married for 52 years when he passed away in 2001.

Eva was a full-time wife and mother and in 1959 started working in the La Villa Post Office as a clerk. She eventually became the postmaster until she retired in 1989. It was remarkable how many friends she made and how many lives she touched through her job and nearly every time she left the house, even into her 90s, she would bump into people who remembered her fondly whether she remembered them or not.

Eva was a talented seamstress; if she spotted a garment in a department store window, she could sketch it out in her mind, purchase fabric, and sew herself an outfit that was nicer than the one she admired. Eva was a gifted painter and many of her paintings now adorn the walls of her children and grandchildren. She was fond of quilting and her quilts are some of her family’s most prized possessions; the night she passed away she was resting under a quilt she had made years before. Eva was an amazing cook and fed huge crowds of family throughout her lifetime. During harvest she would deliver outstanding meals to SA and the boys and each year when bird season rolled around, she would whip up delightful dishes for wall-to-wall Wombles in her home.

“My favorite people call me Gran” is written on a sign in her home. Truer words were never spoken. She’s been known as Gran by 12 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, and all their friends. Eva loved crossword puzzles and board games; if any kind of trivia was involved, you wanted to be on Gran’s team, because she knew everything about everything.

Eva never lived in a fancy house, but she lived to make her house a home; thanks to the loving care of her family, she was able to close her eyes for the last time in that place that meant so much to her on December 3, 2021. The world was enriched because God put Eva Ellen Womble in it and feels a little poorer in her absence. Her family would like to give a word of thanks to her special caregivers Rose, Jennifer, and Jessie. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the First Baptist Church of Weslaco. Eva will be laid to rest at the Womble Family Cemetery on Saturday, December 11, 2021.