Lula Faye VanVeKoven

Lula Faye (Green) VanVeKoven, 79, of Poteau, OK passed away peacefully under the watchful eyes of the nurses and staff members at Select Specialty Hospital in Ft. Smith, AR on Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 4:06 am.   Born February 23, 1933 in Williams, OK, she was the youngest of two children born to native Oklahomans William A. “Jude” Green and Edith Naomi (Hobbs) Green.  Lula Faye loved Williams, where she grew up on a small farm.  She told many stories of her childhood, of attending school in a one room school house, doing homework by kerosene lamp and riding horses and hogs.  She helped her parents raise pigs, chickens, cattle, tend and grow gardens, and milk cows.  She fought with chickens to gather eggs, boiled pork skin on hog killing days for making lard for cooking and making lye soap, made clothing, resoled shoes, and rode a mule drawn wagon to attend church.  When Lula Faye wasn’t climbing trees or chopping them down, riding horses or hogs, making bows and arrows to torment the chickens, opening a dead cow to see if the calf could be saved, chasing her older sister with bugs or herding her sister into a road side ditch with the horse she was riding, she was being carried piggyback by that same sister because her legs ached from the rheumatic fever she suffered with as a younger child.

     She truly enjoyed the full life she lived, but her greatest passion and her true love was her family.  Lula ruled her home with an iron frying pan and an extremely large heart.  She raised her family with God and Jesus always in the forefront.  She read and studied her Holy Bible with the greatest of convictions.  Lula was Chief, Seamstress, Janitor, Maintenance Woman, Accountant, Barber and Police woman to a household of a husband, four children and on occasion a menagerie of wild and domestic animals.  To aid her husband in buying extras that he could not normally afford to buy on his salary alone, Lula worked on assembly lines in fruit and vegetable canneries, as an assembly line supervisor for Hanes Mfgr. Company and as a nurses assistant.  Lula Faye enjoyed quilting, sewing, crocheting beautiful afghans, knitting, making and buying jewelry, reupholstering furniture, disassembling her household appliances, and refurbishing and building houses with her husband.  She knew and played many religious songs on the piano and always enjoyed a good mystery novel or movie.  Lula was always the first to figure out who had done what and why.  She was happiest when the family was gathered together for special occasions.  Her favorite food was salt and kosher dill pickles, salt and grapefruit, salt and watermelon, salt and ….salt.  She was a gentle, tender hearted, wise, understanding, generous soul with a very good sense of humor, a gruff presentation and she will be dearly missed by all who knew and loved her, but especially by her family.  Her sister knows this is one time she cannot carry her piggyback.

   Lula was preceded in death by both parents, husband of 56 years, Arthur VanVeKoven, daughter, Lana Faye (VanVeKoven) Morris, grandson, Jacob Allen VanVeKoven, and granddaughter, Jennifer Lynn (VanVeKoven) Hamilton.. 

    She is survived by her sons, William VanVeKoven and wife LaVerne of Poteau, Gary VanVeKoven of McAlester, and Kenneth VanVeKoven and wife Cindy of Kiowa; her only sibling, Wanda Macy of Poteau; her grandchildren, Robert Joseph, Kristina, Timothy, Katelynn, Aaron, Alaina, Bethany, Robert Allen, and Hannah;  four great grandchildren and her special friends Sparky and Sammy.

    Services will be held 2 pm,  Friday, September  21, 2012 at Pleasant Valley Free Will Baptist Church, Poteau.  Interment will follow in Greenhill Cemetery, Cameron, OK.All family and friends are encouraged and welcome to attend.