Lora Verden

Lora Elizabeth "Beth" Prindle Verden of Lubbock passed away March 15, 2022 at age 91. The youngest of six children, Beth was born to William J. (Bill) Prindle and Oma Lee Barber Prindle in 1931. The family lived in Smithfield, Texas (a country town which is now part of North Richland Hills) and endured unbelievable hardships during the Depression years. Three Prindle children died at age five or under, and her mother died when Beth, the youngest born, was only 16 months of age. Her father was left with three orphaned children. Through his church, he located a governess in Mississippi, the daughter of an equally poor family, who not only came to his aid, she became his second wife.

Bill Prindle and Montez McCutchen were married in the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth, the beautiful flowers and foliage serving as their backdrop. Montez later developed an illness that left her crippled, and in a wheelchair. Nevertheless, she raised the children and enlisted their help to run the household. The family raised and canned their own food. Montez crawled down the rows to tend to her garden.

When their house burned to the ground, the Prindle family lived in a tent with dirt floors for months while Bill built his family a replacement cinderblock house with four rooms, an open-flame heater, no indoor bathroom, and no air conditioning. The kitchen was crude, but served its purpose. Beth nailed discarded wooden food crates together to serve as cabinets, covered by tacked flour sacks. Bill ran one cold water faucet to the sink, which drained on open ground outside. Montez kept a teakettle on the stove and heated bath water for the family to use in a galvanized tub outside, except when the weather was too cold. That modest home served the Prindles and their grandchildren adequately, well into the mid 1960's.

Beth worked all her life in various occupations, such as making chenille bedspreads, sewing Dickies clothes, operating a long-distance telephone switchboard, working as a florist, selling life and hospitalization insurance, running a liquor store, working as a nurse's aide, operating a second-hand store, selling tombstones, building automobile compressors, tending cattle, and keeping books for her brother-in-law's auto parts stores.

Beth, the last of the Prindle family, is survived by daughter, Kay Maddox Davisson and husband Jim of Amarillo; son, Eddie Maddox of Lubbock; and grandson, Murray Junod and fiancee Crystal Sagnimeni of Amarillo. Beth outlived two husbands, Lloyd J. Maddox, and Nelson O. Verden. She instilled a strong Christian faith and work ethic to her children, who not only became successful in life, they still cherish the memories of their summer vacations with their grandparents in that old cinderblock house, and sleeping outdoors under the stars on hot summer nights.

Beth's wishes were for cremation and no services. Her family thanks the many helpers throughout her last 10 years in Lubbock at Grand Court, Remington Park, and the BeeHive, as well as the countless doctors, nurses, and hospice workers who attended her.