Billie Jean "B.J." Otts

Services for Billie Jean Otts, 95, of Gainesville, will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, May 8, 2023, at Geo. J. Carroll & Son Funeral Home. A committal service will follow at Fairview Cemetery. Mrs. Otts passed from this earth on May 3, 2023 in Gainesville.

Billie Jean was born March 4, 1928 in Marysville, TX to Willie Leslie Robison and Edith Jewell Smith Robison and attended schools in Valley Creek, Saint Jo and Gainesville. She began her working career at age 16 as a telephone operator where she spent long nights and weekends connecting Camp Howze soldiers with loved ones throughout the United States.

Billie Jean married Jack Richey on September 18, 1946 and moved with her husband to Gainesville from the Bulcher community. Jack was killed in a trucking accident on April 27, 1950. She married Harold Glen Otts on October 21, 1951 and the two spent 71 years together before his passing on April 7, 2022.

Billie Jean worked in the accounting department of First State Bank of Gainesville for several years before joining her husband in the furniture and appliance business. She earned both sales and brokerage Real Estate licenses and was very active in the development of Moss Lake Estates, Lake Kiowa and various Gainesville sub-divisions. B.J. knew no stranger and would strike up a conversation with anyone, regardless of location. She remembered them all until illness began affecting her memory in mid-2021.

Mrs. Otts was preceded in death by her parents; husbands; sister-in-law Betty Robison; and brother-in-law James Boone.

Survivors include: sons Jim and Mike; grandson Barry Otts and wife Laura, all of Gainesville; granddaughters Leslie Otts of San Antonio and Ashley Weatherby and husband Colt of Piedmont, OK; great-grandson Jackson Otts of Gainesville; great-granddaughters Abigail and Amelia Weatherby of Piedmont, OK; brothers W.L. Robison of Victoria and David Wendell Robison of Sherman; sister Betty Ann Boone of Gainesville; as well as many nephews, nieces, cousins and dear friends.

Please place flower orders directly through a local florist.

https://www.geojcarroll.com/florists