Billie Merle Johnson

76, of Lancaster, TX passed away on Wednesday - August 12, 2015. Billie was born at home April 6, 1939 in Salmon, Texas to a sharecropper family. Later the family moved to Shepherd, TX and then to Houston during the War where her father worked in the shipyards and she would later graduate from Reagan High School. While living there she attended church with her cousins and at one church function was introduced to the brother of a good friend, Paul Thurman Johnson, whom she married. She worked at a Federal Reserve Bank in Houston and then they started a family, and she then devoted herself whole-heartedly to that enterprise. In the early they moved the family to Kennard, Texas while the children were little and in 1980 moved back to Houston and settled in Manvel, Texas where they lived until 2006. After that move Billie worked as a rural route mail carrier for the USPS until she retired. Soon after her retirement she and Paul moved to Lancaster, Texas to be near the grand children and quickly arriving great grand babies. Billie was a member of her beloved Hampton Road Baptist Church in DeSoto, Texas with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Billie is preceded in death by her parents: Chalmer Leo and Libbie Dell Foster Lambright, her husband: Paul T. Johnson in 2012, her sister: Linda Ruth Cornelson and brother: Charles Edry Lambright. Survivors include: daughter and son in law: Jenna Johnson Burris and Bo Burris, and her son: Paul Toby Johnson, her grandchildren: Lloyd Ray Burris II and wife Jaymie Robertson, Laura Rene Burris Gonzalez and her husband: Rafael Gonzalez, Lindsey Rechelle Burris, Lacie Rebecca Burris and husband Jesse Siau great grandchildren: Jessie Sophia Gonzalez, Joel Abraham Gonzalez, Andrew Jace Gonzalez, and Wynter Rose Burris, and awaiting the arrival of Solomon Amethyst Siau, and by her sister: Margie Marie Nance, sisters in law: Earline Keith and Lorena Hill, brother in law: Bobby Royce Johnson, and brother in law Earl D. Cornelsen and by numerous nieces and nephews and their spouses , grand nieces and nephews and their spouses, and great grand nieces and nephews. Visitation will be: Friday, August 21, 2015 at West/Hurtt Funeral Home from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Funeral Services will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, August 22, 2015 at: Hampton Road Baptist Church, 400 N. Hampton Road, DeSoto, TX 75115, with Dr. Jerry R. Raines, officiating. Interment will be held the following day at 3 P. M. on Sunday, August 23, 2015 at Ivie Cemetery, Kennard, TX, near Crockett, Texas. In Lieu of Flowers: Memorials may be made to Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center 7777 Forest Lane suite: D4000 Dallas, TX 75230 (www.MaryCrowleyCancerResearchCenter.org)