The inscription on Grace's headstone speaks of a life of unfulfillment and sadness ... and leaves one wondering. No birth or death date is shown, only the names of her two spouses and the years married.

Grace, who was named after her paternal grandmother, Grace A. Llewellen Smith, indeed suffered much in her life, both phsically and emotionally. At the age of twelve, she was involved in an automobile accident that left her in a body cast due to a broken pelvis. Three weeks later, she developed appendicitis, and the doctors had to cut a hole in her cast in order to perform an appendectomy. (see Arkansas Gazette [Little Rock, Arkansas] news article, 29 Sept 1934, pg 16)

Grace attended West Tennessee Teachers’ College in Memphis, TN. She was a student there in 1940, and was working for the telephone company.

Grace married in 1941 and had three sons with her first husband during the course of their twenty-year marriage. The eldest was born in Kansas City, Mo, the middle son was born in Fort Benning, GA, and the youngest was born in Anchorage, Ak. Because of Mr. Chandler's military career, they traveled a great deal and her sons attended over twenty different schools prior to graduating from high school. This marriage ended sometime in 1961, and Mr. Chandler re-married before the end of that year. His second marriage ended fifteen years later and he married his third wife three months after that.

Four years into her first marriage, Grace lost her only sibling to World War II. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the 379 AAF Bomb GP and was killed in 1945, on Valentine's Day, over Belgium. He is buried in Memphis National Cemetery.

The year following her divorce from Mr. Chandler, Grace buried her mother one week before Christmas, and two years later she buried her father, two weeks before Christmas.

Grace married her second husband in 1967, but that marriage did not last. By 1973, Mr. Stoops had re-married. Mr. Stoops had also been in the military, serving during WWII on the USS O'Flaherty, a destroyer escort.

Grace worked as a Civil Service computer technician at Kelly AFB in San Antonio. With all three of her sons grown and on their own she had no one at home, so she lived alone as her epitaph says, and she died alone in a motel room while on a trip to Fredericksburg, TX, 70 miles north of her hometown of San Antonio.
bio by ShaRon

The inscription on Grace's headstone speaks of a life of unfulfillment and sadness ... and leaves one wondering. No birth or death date is shown, only the names of her two spouses and the years married.

Grace, who was named after her paternal grandmother, Grace A. Llewellen Smith, indeed suffered much in her life, both phsically and emotionally. At the age of twelve, she was involved in an automobile accident that left her in a body cast due to a broken pelvis. Three weeks later, she developed appendicitis, and the doctors had to cut a hole in her cast in order to perform an appendectomy. (see Arkansas Gazette [Little Rock, Arkansas] news article, 29 Sept 1934, pg 16)

Grace attended West Tennessee Teachers’ College in Memphis, TN. She was a student there in 1940, and was working for the telephone company.

Grace married in 1941 and had three sons with her first husband during the course of their twenty-year marriage. The eldest was born in Kansas City, Mo, the middle son was born in Fort Benning, GA, and the youngest was born in Anchorage, Ak. Because of Mr. Chandler's military career, they traveled a great deal and her sons attended over twenty different schools prior to graduating from high school. This marriage ended sometime in 1961, and Mr. Chandler re-married before the end of that year. His second marriage ended fifteen years later and he married his third wife three months after that.

Four years into her first marriage, Grace lost her only sibling to World War II. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the 379 AAF Bomb GP and was killed in 1945, on Valentine's Day, over Belgium. He is buried in Memphis National Cemetery.

The year following her divorce from Mr. Chandler, Grace buried her mother one week before Christmas, and two years later she buried her father, two weeks before Christmas.

Grace married her second husband in 1967, but that marriage did not last. By 1973, Mr. Stoops had re-married. Mr. Stoops had also been in the military, serving during WWII on the USS O'Flaherty, a destroyer escort.

Grace worked as a Civil Service computer technician at Kelly AFB in San Antonio. With all three of her sons grown and on their own she had no one at home, so she lived alone as her epitaph says, and she died alone in a motel room while on a trip to Fredericksburg, TX, 70 miles north of her hometown of San Antonio.
bio by ShaRon