Barbara Annette (Berry) Yates, 86, died May 19, 2023, at the Lampasas Assisted Living Center.
Visitation was held at Heritage Funeral Home in Lampasas on May 23. Services followed at 2:30 p.m., with Joe Manuel and Glendon Nicks officiating. Interment was at Kempner City Cemetery.
Annette was born May 3, 1937 to Frank and Julia (Smith) Berry in Lampasas. She spent all her life in Texas. She was active in school, taking part in the FHA, LTP, annual staff, cheerleading and playing basketball. In 1935, she was the Hayloft Queen (now part of the Spring Ho festival).
Annette started working at a sweet shop to make money to go to church camp. Then she worked at Mott’s, Lampasas Drug and The Lampasas Dispatch newspaper. She was working at the Dispatch when the building caught fire on the east side of the courthouse square. The newspaper moved to Second Street, and the Dispatch later combined with the Lampasas Record at the current location on Live Oak Street.
Annette graduated from Lampasas High School on May 31, 1955, and married Lester Yates Jr. on June 17, 1955. They would have been married 68 years had she lived 29 days longer.
She was a bookkeeper, working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and Harmel Oil Company. After she retired, she babysat for some time.
Annette loved her church where she sang in the choir, was president and treasurer of CWF, and active in Bible studies.
She loved her family and worried about their well-being. She loved to work outside in the yard and garden, and was always willing to help her husband fix fences and cut cedar. The well-being of her two sons was the number-one thing in her life.
Annette was preceded in death by her brothers Sonny Berry and Alton Berry, and by sisters Frankie Zumwalt, Mildred Dodds and Sue Baxter.
She is survived by her husband, Lester Yates Jr. of Lampasas; sons Brian of Lampasas, and Ronnie and wife Melanie of Hamilton; grandson Rowdy Yates and wife Rachael of Scottsdale, Arizona; granddaughter Lacee Proter and husband Jay of Iola, Texas; great-grandson Dean Salome and three stepgreat- grandkids, Conlee, Cannon and Presley Porter, all of Iola; and her youngest sibling, Max and wife Wanda of Georgetown.
