Carrie Glenn

 Carrie Jean (Lenard) Glenn

June 25, 1943- June 8, 2021

Known by many for the baby goats she brought to her kids’ classrooms, the long lines of customers that would form to check out with her at Walmart for 16 years, and her artistry in crochet and with plants, Carrie Glenn passed away peacefully after a brief stay at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Carrie was born in Bakersfield, California during World War II, and lived in the communities of Clayton and Summerfield in Oklahoma, then graduated high school from Greenwood, Arkansas.  After working in a furniture factory in Fort Smith, she met a local man at the Heavener skating rink who needed help pulling a calf at his place just a few miles away.  She volunteered to help Raymond Glenn, and they celebrated 45 years of marriage before his death in October 2012.  Their two children, Peggy and Raymond II (Eddie), were encouraged to dream big, and Carrie and Raymond were always their kids’ most avid supporters in everything they accomplished.

Although an artist in her own right, Carrie spent many years as a volunteer for her children’s activities. She was a long-time Brownie and Girl Scout leader, president of the Heavener Parent/Teacher Association, and the coolest show-and-tell presenter ever. Baby chicks hatched in a classroom incubator and baby goats were just two of her most memorable presentations. 

After her kids left for college, she became a co-owner of Bullard’s Flower Shop in Heavener, where she was able to create thoughtful and elaborate floral arrangements for locals, including one featuring a domino game laid out (with much experimentation) to provide the greatest number of points. She served meals at Heavener Public Schools cafeteria and Heavener Senior Citizen Center before joining Walmart in Poteau as a cashier, becoming the go-to trainer for dozens of new employees.

Throughout her life, Carrie raised a number of domestic animals, and a few wild ones, including Tom the Turkey, and her pickled quail eggs were a local delicacy.  After retirement, Carrie began teaching crochet to anyone who wanted to learn, and designing new crochet patterns, many of which were published in Crochet! Magazine and other national crafting magazines. Her famous crocheted house shoes were featured in The Needlecraft Shop’s special Home & Comforts edition in 1999.  She also propagated and planted succulents, flowers, bushes, and trees, the more exotic the better.  She was known to stop on the side of the road to collect new plants, and friends and family knew that walking through a public garden or arboretum with her meant serving as a lookout as she bent to collect seed pods, pull up a tiny seedling, or take a small cutting of a plant that she didn’t already have. Since 2006, knee and hip replacements on the same leg within the same year meant walking with a crutch or cane, but that didn’t stop her from doing anything she set her mind to, whether moving a series of 16-foot steel panels to accommodate a “deer gate” or moving 50-lb bags of mulch around the yard.

She is preceded in death by her father and mother, James Hiram and Clara Dean (Wheeler) Lenard, her husband Raymond Glenn, and brothers Charles and George Lenard.  She is survived by her children Peggy Glenn of Tahlequah and Eddie Glenn and girlfriend Jennifer Stevens of Tahlequah; brothers Rolly Lenard of Sugarloaf Lake, Arkansas, James (and Lynn) Lenard of Haskell; sisters Emmie (and Gary) Carpenter of Wister, Oklahoma and Janie (and Davy) Owens of Summerfield; in-laws Ernie “Buck” and Kaye (Glenn) Cauthron of Fanshawe and Ronald Glenn of Zoe; numerous nieces and nephews; and honorary grandchildren Grace and Selah Stevens.

Pallbearers are nephews Nathan Adams, Steven Carpenter, Brent Hill, Davy Owens Jr., William Owens, and Nickolas Wann.  Honorary pall bearers are brothers and in laws Gary Carpenter, Ernie “Buck” Cauthron, Ron Glenn, Joe Glenn, Rolly Lenard, James Lenard, and Davy Owens, and family friends H. Ray Eaton and Ron Evans.

Family visitation will be held on Thursday, June 10, from 6 to 8 pm at Evans & Miller Funeral Home, 411 Dewey Ave., Poteau, Oklahoma. Funeral services will be held on Friday, June 11, at 2 pm at the First Baptist Church of Heavener, 201 W Ave. B, Heavener, Oklahoma, with graveside services immediately following at Glendale Cemetery at Mountain View Church, 41272 Glendale Rd., Howe, Oklahoma.  All are invited back to the First Baptist Church’s fellowship hall afterward to enjoy snacks and to reminisce about Carrie.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Carrie’s memory to the NSU Foundation, 812 N. Cedar Ave, Tahlequah, OK 74464, for PLC Activity Fund (www.nsugiving.com/donate) or to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, PO Box 98018, Washington, DC  20090-8018 (donate.lls.org), which helped her tremendously over the past three years as she battled chronic lymphocytic leukemia.