Graveside services for Norma Ball Walter will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, November 20, 2017 in the Rose Hill Cemetery, Chickasha, Oklahoma.
Norma Ball Walter passed away peacefully at the age of 87 in Tyler, Texas on November 8, 2017, with family by her side. She is survived by her sister, Sally Mea, her husband George, her son Jamie and his wife Deborah, and her nieces Robin Boney, Allison McKinney, Clauzelle Poe, Michelle Poe and Jane Poe.
Norma was born in San Diego, California to Ruben Reynolds and his wife Grace on June 14, 1930. Her mother Grace passed away when Norma was only 10 months old and she was later adopted by Grace’s sister Clauzelle and her husband J. D. Ball, who worked in the oil industry in Texas. Norma moved frequently around south Texas oil camps when she was young and later attended Our Lady of The Lake, a boarding school in San Antonio, Texas for part of her high school years. After graduating from high school in Corpus Christi, she attended Stephens College in Missouri and then later transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where she became a member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and earned a degree in education.
In 1954, Norma married George Walter, a petroleum geologist, in Corpus Christi, Texas. After living in Corpus Christi and on the King Ranch, they moved to Calcutta, India in 1957 for George’s work, the first of many exciting international assignments that took them to various countries, including Iraq, Libya, and Colombia. After a long career in the international oil business, they eventually retired to Tyler, Texas to be near family.
Norma is fondly remembered by those who knew her for her compassion, her many pet cats, her strong faith and her optimism. Throughout her life, she remained eternally grateful to her adoptive parents, Clauzelle and J.D. Ball, for their love, generosity and kindness. She was always very aware that she was blessed to have been adopted by them and frequently stated that her life would have been very different had they not adopted her. As a small child, she incessantly read National Geographic and dreamed of seeing the world when she got older. Few people get to live their dreams, but Norma was fortunate to see the world with her husband George at her side. She will be missed and remembered by those she leaves behind.
Services are under the direction of Ferguson Funeral Home.