Vada Susie Landers Stevens, 99 passed away Tuesday, April 27, 2010 in Ozark County. She was born April 9, 1911 to Roy Russell and Nancy Louisa (Grisham) Landers. She lived in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi through the years until she came home to retire.

She became a Christian in Victoria, TX and became a member of Gainesville First Baptist Church upon moving back to the Ozarks. Vada is survived by one son Charles and wife Lise of Little Rock, AR; seven grandchildren Dee of Beaumont, TX, Jimmie Don of Orange, TX, Vada Lou of Singer, LA, Ross of Singer, LA, Billy Ray of Baton Rouge, LA, Gaëlle of Little Rock, AR, Sabine of Columbia, SC. Vada loved her family and took great pride in each one.

She had a special dry wit and never ceased to amaze folks with her abilities like her cooking (Fried Pies was a special favorite), her needle work (baby blankets, and etc.) and her gardening. Seed catalogs and the Almanac were read and looked at with plans for the great event of candy corn, beans, tomatoes, and etc. To have lunch with Vada in garden season was a table full of nothing except what her hands had planted, plowed and harvested. It was wonderful! She always burnt off the old garden- which was a scary experience. She shared her produce with family and friends. She laid rock, mowed her own lawn with a push mower til she was 88 and plowed her garden with a Troybilt tiller (a big one). It was a truck patch not a small garden. Her bitter enemies were the wretched coons that raided her garden as it produced. She took it as a personal offense and reacted as anyone under siege. There was a nice size bone pile behind the house to show she was not to be messed with! She was a walking encyclopedia about trees, flowers, finances, cooking and gardening, and animals…(she used a hot shot to fence off a turkey gobbler that turned aggressive.)

She lost her mother at an early age and thought she was old enough to get married when she met the love of her life Edward Elvis Stevens (known as Mudge). After she married Mudge, she got practice in the art of being a homemaker by building playhouses with her sister-in-law Polly over in the creek bed. Mudge and Vada were married on October 7, 1927 when Vada was sixteen. Their wedding night was spent on a pallet in the hall due to the fact that her father-in-law thought you should be older and have a job before getting married. He just knew the marriage would not last. They were married 62 years and she was widowed for 22 years.

They started their family with the birth of Billy Edward in 1928, Charles Lee in 1931, and Jimmie Frank in 1933. When as a boy Jimmie was lost in a house fire, they moved to Oklahoma and Mudge started his career of 40 years working in the Oil Fields. They bought a farm outside Gainesville and on retirement came home to the Ozarks and turned their farm into a gardening paradise and a small cattle ranch. In 1971 she became her niece Nancy's running buddy. They hauled cattle to every sale barn within a hundred miles of Gainesville and was said to be a wonderful traveling companion. She made it possible for her daughter-in-law, Lise, to earn a bachelor degree while she kept the granddaughters after school and pretty much fed the family. Vada was very close to all her grandchildren as a willing babysitter for all seven and was lovingly known as MaMa Stevens. She loved checkers and card games and was absolutely determined to win. Her energy level was to be admired – at the age of 82 she purchased and used a treadmill daily until about the age of 95.

She was preceded in death by her parents and 9 siblings Lex Landers, Armand Landers, Edith Gaulding, Mabel Amyx, Amy Hickman, Beulah Devaul, and R.G. Landers. An infant brother died and her mother died in child birth.

She overcame two rounds of cancer, heart trouble and diabetes. She and Mudge were literally blown away in a tornado and lost everything they had in Cameron, LA in 1962 – so they started again. She was, and always will be, someone we loved and admired. For 99 years she gave life her best effort.



Funeral Services for Vada will be at 11:00am on Saturday, May 1, 2010 in the Clinkingbeard Funeral Home, Gainesville, MO with Mike Dillin officiating. Burial will be in the Sims Cemetery in Gainesville, MO. The family invites all friends to come visit and eat with them at 1:00pm on Saturday afternoon in the First Baptist Church in Gainesville, MO following the service.