Obituary

Messer Funeral services for Fern Upchurch Messer, 100, will be at 10 a.m. Monday in Lemons Funeral Home Chapel with Gayle McCoy, a Primitive Baptist Church elder, officiating. Burial will be in Plainview Cemetery. Local arrangements are by Lemons Funeral Home. Mrs. Messer died July 7, 2004, in Canon City. She was born Aug. 7, 1903, in Ellis County, the daughter of John B. and Josie D. Clements Upchurch. On June 13, 1928, she married James Arville Messer. He died in 1997. She moved to Plainview in 1925 and lived in Abernathy, Borger and Pantex for a number of years. She returned to this area and lived in the Edmonson community for 20 years before her health failed and she and her husband moved to Canon City in 1991 to be closer to their children. She was a homemaker, and had worked at various jobs including the Pantex Ordnance Plant near Amarillo during World War II, and as a dietitian at the Plainview Medical Center, retiring in 1965. She was a member of Primitive Baptist Church in Plainview for more than 50 years. Survivors include five sons, James Coy Messer and Vestel O. "Shorty" Messer, both of Canon City; the Rev. Richard W. Messer of Beulah, Colo., Royce E. "Toby" Messer of Seminole and John D. Messer of Tulsa, Okla.; two brothers, H.B. Upchurch of Lubbock and Garland R. Upchurch of Scottsdale, Ariz.; 14 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren. Four brothers and five sisters are deceased