I wrote your name on a piece of paper, but by accident I threw it away.
I wrote your name on my hand, but it washed away.
I wrote your name in the sand, but the waves whispered it away.
I wrote your name in my heart, and forever it will stay.
(If you know the name of the author of this poem please contact me so that I can give the proper credit for the poem.)
In Loving Memory
of
Mary Odessa Yon
Feb. 3, 1911 - Dec. 17, 2004
"She was known to mother," her granddaughter Mary McCord of Dothan, Ala. said. "That was her calling in life."
The oldest of 16 kids, McCord said that Mrs. Yon had a hand in raising all of them. She also lived with Mrs. Yon for several years.
"She taught me how to value life," she said. "Also, the difference between wanting and needing."
After opening a trucking line, Mrs. Yon opened Overpass Cafe in Eloise. Her businesses also included a grocery store and several rental homes. In the 1970s, she built a mobile home park and named the streets after her children.
Mrs. Yon used her business to help the homeless, McCord said, by giving them food and a place to stay.
"She mothered anyone who needed mothering," she said.
She was a member of VFW Ladies Auxiliary. She was a Pentecostal.
Mrs. Yon was preceded in death by her husband, Benjamin Alton Yon. She is survived by her daughters, Patsy Kriston, Winter Haven, Judie Passons, Seivierville, Tenn.; son, Kent Alton Johnson, Auburndale; brothers, Orell Drummond and Mark Drummond, Cottondale, Freddie Paul Drummond, Sneads; sisters, Betty Ann Drummond, Cottondale, Froy Wilde, Muskeegee, Okla., Ernestine Gibson, Winter Haven, Hazel Thompson, Jacksonville, Johnnie Sue Braxton, Auburndale; 18 grandchildren; 22 great-grandchildren; and seven great-great-grandchildren.
She will be missed by all including her friend Shirley who considers her more than a friend.
