Pearl Frances Parsons

Pearl was born in 1926 in Abbeville, La., the youngest of Katie and Sidney Guidry's four children and born at home to a midwife. The family mostly lived in farm country around Abbeville and by the time she was old enough to know, Pearl realized money didn't grown on trees or on their farms. Her father's family was French and illiterate up and down the line. Her mother was Irish and well educated. Her dad was a day laborer and her mother a teacher.

Several years later, during WW II, Pearl found herself among the millions of young women who had been `freed' by the war and the choices it gave women to stay home or leave, to work or not. While attending college in Lafayette, La., as she later wrote: `My escape came in the form of a blond-haired, blue-eyed man from Nebraska--alas, a Yankee. He fooled my mother by telling her he was Irish. He was pure Swede.'

We don't have time today to recount the 48 years together of Bud and Pearl Parsons, but virtually all of it was spent in Nebraska. Pearl's main career was 22 years as the secretary to a series of deans at UNO's College of Education, but along the way she taught kindergarten in Marquette, Neb, and worked for the Port Arthur, Texas, newspaper. She loved the vacation package at UNO! Estes Park, Co., became the destination of choice, and the family made several trips there.

At the end of Pearl's UNO career in 1987 and as Bud's heart troubles worsened, they moved to Denver to be near John and Lorri and their young grandson. After Bud died in January 1993, Pearl stayed in Colorado. In time, she thrived. She loved the grandeur of the Rockies on what seemed to be a deep esthetic level, and she and the four kids made dozens of car trips to Colorado towns when they were together.

She joined a church, scored a hole-in-one in her golf league, went to Rockies' baseball games with friends and took trips with travel groups that included forays to Ireland and Hawaii. She made multiple trips back to her old stomping grounds in Louisiana and Texas. Dana and Nancy made an Abbeville trip with Pearl to what they think was her 60th high school reunion. Pearl and Bud made two or three extended trips to Charleston to visit Karen and her husband in the '80s. After Bud died, Pearl made annual month-long treks to California until 2011 to hook up with Nancy and Dana.

Pearl had relatively excellent health for 85 years. Her final several years became an increasing struggle. In the beginning, she understood Alzheimer's but couldn't believe it had come to her. In the midst of her struggles, she still smiled right up into the final weeks of her life. She had lived her adult life as a Nebraskan and a Coloradan, endured and shook off the hardships and laughed heartily at the good times and recounted them with glee. In her final months, her mind and words frequently took her back to Abbeville. It was as if she was a young dark-haired Southern girl again, wanting to go home.