Pauline Pierce Howell

Funeral services for Pauline Pierce Howell, 89, of Gainesville​, are set for 2:00 PM Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at the Geo. J. Carroll & Son Funeral Home with the Rev. John Brooks officiating. Burial will follow in the High Point Cemetery in Sivells Bend. A visitation will be held on Monday, March 19, 2018 at 6:00 PM at the funeral home.

Pauline was born in Gainesville on March 20, 1928 to Isaac Ferd Pierce and Callie Dora (Sark) Pierce. She passed away on March 15, 2018 in Gainesville.

Pauline was raised in Valley Creek Texas and graduated from Gainesville High School. She earned both a BFA and a Masters degree from NTSU, now North Texas University.  She and her family moved to Lovington, New Mexico where she and her husband Houston taught for 23 years. After returning back to Gainesville in the early 1980s, Pauline continued to teach in elementary school for another 13 years. Teaching and education were important to Pauline.  She was always a Sunday School teacher in Sivells Bend, Lovington, and Gainesville.  After she retired from public schools she volunteered as an aide for an adult ESL class available at her church, First Baptist in Gainesville, and she told bible stories at a local daycare one day a week well into her 80’s.  As good as she was at teaching she was so much more, a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, church member and volunteer, an avid gardner with a passion for Iris, a cutthroat 84 player, and a woman whose faith and kindness were bone deep.  She will be greatly missed by her family, her friends, and her community.

Pauline is survived by her daughter Donna Sickles and husband John of Saint Jo; son Rodney Howell and wife Margaret of Sivells Bend; grandchildren Katie Sickles Small; Brett Howell and wife Claire; and Brady Howell and wife Alison; great-grandson Bryson Small; and sister Rita Talley.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husband Houston Howell; sister Dorothy Proffer and husband Duffy; and brother in law Jerry Talley.

Pallbearers will be Gerald Rust, Brett Howell, Brady Howell, Daniel Jones, L.W. Voth, and William Baldwin.