BIO: by Karla Todd Sherer
Lucille is the daughter of Theophilus Harris and Lavinnia Jane CONLEY Ray. Born in Oklahoma, she would love the state all her life and was proud to be an Okie.

Around the late 1920's to 1930, her parents moved the family to New Mexico around Eddy Co. Lucille's father farmed for a living. It was not long until they moved on to Graham Co., AZ. There is where they made their permanent home. Lucille met and married William Paul Mecham around 1936. They had 3 sons. They also had a daughter who died shortly after birth. They later divorced and she married Raphael Phillips. He died in 1973. Lucille then married Lyle Henry Smith who died in 1993. The real story of Lucille's life is summed up perfectly by one of her children so I share that here:

.....Contributed by her son Samuel Clay Mecham......

Lucille was part of the Westward "Dust Bowl" Migration from Oklahoma. Settling first in New Mexico then moving on to Arizona. She was always proud to be an Okie. Most of her life she spent working as a cook but during WW2 she, along with several other family members went to WA to work in a shipyard building Liberty Ships for the war effort. They trained her as a welder and due to her small size assigned her to weld in very small confined spaces. It was in one of these confined spaces (part of a double hull) that she along with another woman was overcome by gas fumes and a lack of oxygen and passed out. It was only due to a very alert supervisor who, according to Lucille, always watched out for his workers, that the alarm was given and both women pulled out of the space and revived. She always said that it was only due to his concern for his workers safety and his constant vigilance that she was alive. After the war she and her sister-in-law ran the cafeteria at a small junior college in Eastern Arizona where she was called Mom by several hundred college students who were away from home for the first time in their lives. She gave a lot of hugs and dried a lot tears during those years. In the late 50s and early 60s she ran a truck stop cafe on route 66 in Northern Arizona. We were both amazed in later years when it became Historic Route 66 and a TV program was made about it and also a song. We both remembered it as hot, windy, and dusty in the summer and cold and windy in the winter and boring as all "heck" with long stretches of absolutely nothing between small towns. She later ran a cookhouse and bunk house for Southwest Forest Industries in a small but quite well known (in AZ anyway) company town on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation called Maverick. Often the the coldest spot in the Western U.S. and sometimes in the whole U.S. Lucille was always a caring person and would always give you her last nickel if you needed it.

Never forgotten....