BETTY LOU LAFON

CARTHAGE- Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Ulmer Funeral Home Chapel for Betty Lou (Donalson) LaFon, 87, who died Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. Burial will follow at the Dudenville Cemetery.

Visitation will be held from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, at Ulmer Funeral Home.

Contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society, Muscular Dystrophy or the Diabetes Foundation, in care of the funeral home.

Online condolences maybe made at www.ulmerfh.com.

Survivors include her daughter-in-law, Sandy LaFon (wife of her late son Lyle), daughter Lora Howerton and husband Ron and son Leslie LaFon and wife Janet, all of Carthage. She is also survived by three grandsons, Curtis Speer of Carthage, Wesley LaFon and wife Anna of Lonoke, Ark. and John T. Ortner of Webb City: two great-grandchildren, Kaleb LaFon and Grace Ortner and several nieces and nephews from the LaFon and Donalson families.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Emmit Donalson and Jaunita Donalson; her husband, Wayne LaFon; son, Lyle LaFon; sisters, Lois O'Dea, Viola Yonkers and Helen Scholpp; mother and father-in-law, Travis and Clara LaFon; sisters and brothers-in-law, Bill and Arthamese Gulick, Harold and Imogene Stiles, Merle and Bette LaFon, Winston and Geraldine Nixon and Maurice and Natalie Wilson and nieces Neola Knowles, Thelma Stiles, Wilda Wilson and Debra Clark.

Mrs. LaFon was born on Aug. 6, 1934, to Emmit and Juanita (Bean) Donalson, the youngest of four girls. She attended the Newport two-room rural grade school and graduated from Golden City High School in the class of 1951. She married the love of her life, Wayne LaFon, in 1952. They lived on his family farm south of Dudenville for 54 years before his death in 2006. There they were so blessed with two sons, Lyle and Leslie, and one daughter, Lora.

Mrs. LaFon worked at the Bank of Carthage and Big Smith for 32 years. She loved gardening, cooking for her family, caring for elder family members and spending time with her grandchildren. She was saved and baptized at the age of 11 at Newport Baptist Church in one of those historic revivals of all times. She was a member and elder of the White Oak Presbyterian Church and later attended the First Presbyterian Church of Carthage.